The One Friend of Seto Kaiba
by Z.Quill
Summary: When a too-good-to-be-true new girl arrives in Domino, Kaiba decides that being alone is no longer for him. But, Yami can't get the thought that something's wrong with this perfect girl out of his head and that she poses a threat to them all.
1. Introducing Kitty

Yugi Moto was looking over his latest French II assignment, double-checking for errors, when Joey leaped on him.

"Hey, guess what, Yug!" he asked him as he put the kid in a headlock.

"What, Joey?" Yugi barely managed to rasp out. Joey released him before moving around to the front of his desk and slamming his hands down on Yugi's homework.

"We're getting a new kid!" Joey exclaimed exuberantly.

Yugi stared at him for a moment, pausing in his attempt to free his captive homework. "What? How do you know?"

"'Cause we saw her, that's how," Tristan interjected as he came in and sat to the right of Yugi. "She was real cute, too. Big blue eyes… long legs… kind of tall for a girl." Tristan sighed as he stared off into space, a small goofy grin on his face. He came back to earth with a shake of his head. "A bit pale, though."

"Really pale, ya mean," Joey corrected. "And, what was wit' dat monstrous hat on her head? It's like she was wearing a dead animal!"

"Wait, who was wearing a dead animal?" Tea had just arrived. She sat down to Yugi's left, giving him a smile before replacing it with a somewhat disgusted look from what she'd heard of the conversation.

"The new girl, apparently," Bakura said from where he'd been listening in from behind Tristan. Lord only knew when he'd gotten there.

"Yeah, ya couldn't see any of her hair under the great furry thing… Maybe she's bald," Joey wondered aloud, tapping his chin contemplatively.

"She's not bald!" shouted an enraged Tristan, drawing most of the class's attention to him.

"Maybe not. All I'm sayin' is that she _could_ be bald, and we would never know it 'cause of da hat!" Joey shot back. "Jeez, Tristan. How long did it take ya to form a crush on her anyway? Two seconds? You just need ta chill a bit." He added in a whisper, "Especially when she might be bald."

"Uh, maybe you guys should save this argument for later, huh? Class is about to start soon anyway," Yugi put in.

"Meh," Joey said, taking his seat behind Yugi. "Well, you'll see her soon enough. The principal said he was gonna put her in our homeroom, so she should be here any second now. And, then you can see what I mean 'bout da hat," he whispered the last part conspiratorially to Yugi.

"Was it really that bad, Joey?" Yugi whispered back. From what Joey had said, it sounded as if the new girl was wearing a deceased badger on her head.

"Well, not really, I guess," Joey confessed. "Eh, maybe I exaggerated a bit." He leaned back in his desk, putting his arms behind his head, and ending the whispered conversation.

_Joey tends to exaggerate a lot,_ Yami commented.

_Yeah, I know. But, he means well,_ Yugi defended his friend. _Usually,_ he added with a wince.

_So, what's the big deal about there being a new girl? Never minding the hat._

Yugi smiled at the mild joke as he answered through the mind link. _In a bigger school it might not be a big deal, but there are so few of us here that we all know each other already. When some kid comes along, whom we know nothing about, that person is all—_

— _Shiny and new and ready to be played with? _the Pharaoh guessed.

_Yeah. It's probably harder to be shiny_ _and new in a small school than in a big one. We've already started obsessing on her and we haven't even seen her yet. _

_I get your point. But, what's so difficult about it all? You're all just here to learn._

_Not exactly. _Yugi was biting his lower lip now. _All the socializing we do here can have a huge effect on what we're like when interacting with others as adults. And, even if it doesn't affect us then, whatever we do _now _is going to affect us now. One social faux pas when you're a freshman can practically turn you into an exile for the next four years of your life. It's kind of scary when you don't have friends who you know will back you up._

_I'm starting to feel sorry for the new girl, _Yami admitted.

_Me, too. Just sitting in the wrong place during class or in the cafeteria could ruin you in a second._

_So, everyone in this class sits near the front for the most part. If she chose to sit in the back…?_

_Something like that, only… _Yugi hazarded a glance towards the back of the room. _It's still a bit more complicated._

It was true that the back rows were primarily empty, but there was a pretty damn good reason for that.

Seto Kaiba sat in the back row, right in the bloody center of it. If you sat back there, within two desks of any direction of the guy, it wasn't so much you're social standing that would be in jeopardy, but more like your entire frickin' existence.

Seto Kaiba had made it obvious to the school that he wasn't a people person. That was why he reigned in the back row in most of his classes, why he had no lab or gym partners, and why he had a whole lunch table all to himself. No one wanted to tangle with him.

Yugi watched Kaiba as he read a small paperback at his lonesome island of a desk. He had a feeling that school wasn't so much the taxing event for Kaiba that it was for everyone else, but more of a place where Kaiba actually got to relax from the stresses of being the eighteen-year-old president of his own company. At least, that is, when he wasn't skipping class to literally take care of business, or doing Kaiba Corp. work right there in class on his laptop.

Kaiba just glided through all of his courses from Senior Gym to all the Honors and AP classes he took and could have practically taught himself. Yugi knew that Kaiba already had a GED, and there were rumors that he was in the process of getting two degrees online and already had one in Business. So, it puzzled him, as well as the rest of the gang, as to why someone with Kaiba's intelligence, genius really, and with all his supposed accomplishments, would go to an average high school.

_I guess it's one of the great mysteries of life why Kaiba doesn't just say to hell with all of this,_ the Pharaoh teased.

_Yami, please don't cuss in my head._ Yugi heard the Pharaoh's distant, ghostly laughter as he retreated from Yugi's mind and back into the Millennium Puzzle.

When Yugi refocused on his surroundings, he focused his attention on where the new girl would probably sit. The front row was already filled, with Tristan, Tea, and himself filling up the middle three seats, and two others in the seats on either side of them. The desks were set up in a five by five square, the first and third row completely filled, a couple spaces left in the second row, to the left of Joey and the right of Bakura, only two people on the outsides of the fourth row, and only Kaiba in the back. Behind Tea was his best guess for where the new girl would sit; it was an obvious choice, easy to get to, in the center of the room, and he'd make sure that the gang all acted friendly so that the new girl wouldn't feel completely like an outsider.

Now that he'd settled that, he felt he could get back to rechecking his French assignment, after he smoothed out all the wrinkles Joey had got in it. He loved Joey like a brother, but sometimes his unintentional penchant for havoc was just too much. But, he'd still put up with it, as well as with Joey putting his feet through the back of Yugi's seat, like he was doing now, since they were best friends.

The bell rang then, putting a stop to Yugi's obsessive answer checking. Yugi sighed. They were all probably right anyway. At least, that's what he hoped. Even though it was his second year of it, he just didn't get French. That was why he devoted so much more studying to it than any of his other subjects. He in all likelihood could have kept going over it since their teacher, Ms. Liddy, was just now walking into the room, barely balancing on her high heels and holding a giant stack of unorganized files and papers in both arms, with a cup of coffee balancing on top. Yugi just about keeled over at the thought of there being any of his papers in that stack that could quite easily become doused in steaming hot coffee.

"Would you like any help, Ms. Liddy?" asked Tristan in an excited, almost sickly sweet way. He stood up in preparation. _Yes! Help her, please! _Yugi thought. He didn't care that Tristan was only offering because he had a crush on the teacher, he just wanted the tottering youngish woman to unhand his precious, clean papers.

"No, thank you, Tristan. I can manage, I think," she replied with a tinkling laugh. Yugi just about burst out crying. As can be seen, Yugi was somewhat of a perfectionist with his schoolwork, and he didn't want his perfection ruined by a cup of freaking coffee! He was so focused that he didn't even notice Tristan's crestfallen expression as he sat back down into a caved-in slouch.

With bated breath, Yugi watched as Ms. Liddy _finally_ set the papers down and removed the coffee from the stack. He let out a huge sigh of relief, not seeing the weirded-out look Joey gave to the back of his head.

_Kid needs ta learn ta relax a bit,_ Joey thought.

And, Yugi really was a kid. He was the youngest in this class, only a sophomore, lead by Bakura and a few others who were juniors, and then the rest of the class was filled with seniors. The school ran its classes in a really weird way that made this possible, since neither Yugi nor Bakura were truly smart enough to get into a class with seniors. Not that they were stupid.

First period was a bit of a free for all, with kids basically doing whatever they wanted as long as they weren't out wandering the halls or smoking in the bathrooms or leaving campus or whatever. The students, no matter what their grade or skill level, who needed help with or enjoyed certain areas, would sign up for a specific teacher, depending on the subject they taught, at the beginning of the year, which they could change after each quarter if they wanted in order to get the help they needed. Ms. Liddy's first period class was for the kids who didn't really have a subject they especially exceeded or failed in. This was considered their homeroom, which was basically a study hall for them.

After having most of the class eavesdropping on Joey's new kid speech, they were all wondering when said new kid was going to arrive. Except Kaiba, who _had_ been listening in, but didn't feel the need to give it more thought than that. It was just a new kid. And, Kaiba had been doubling his efforts to ignore the geek squad and keep their ever-issuing, if tentative, proposals of friendship from being extended. They should know by know that that sort of thing just wasn't for him, and it was getting tedious having to shut them down all the time. He had better things to do.

"Dang it, where is she?" Joey muttered. "I know I heard the principal talkin' about puttin' her in this class."

"Maybe she's lost or had some paperwork to fill out," Tea suggested.

"Maybe," Joey grumbled, pulling his feet out of Yugi's desk and slouching forward with his head balanced on his fist, a glum expression on his face.

"Okey dokey, class," Ms. Liddy started up. This was different; she rarely made announcements. Basically, as long as they kept it to a dull roar, they could do whatever the heck they wanted during this time. "For those of you who don't know yet, everyone in the school is going to be expected to—" she was interrupted by groans, "—I know I know. But, you're all going to be expected to read at least one of the essays you've written in an English class this or last year out loud sometime this week. You get to do it in here, so don't worry about it being a big production. Just choose an essay that you're proud, or, at least, not too ashamed of, read it, and sit back down. It doesn't really matter if it's good or not, all I have to mark down is that you did read. There, is that better?" she questioned cheerfully. There were a few mumbles of consent. "Good. Now, —"

She was interrupted by a light knocking at the door. Immediately it was obvious that this had been the girl that Joey and Tristan were talking about. Yugi barely even noticed the floppy, black, faux fur hat she had on. What attracted his attention the most was the vibe of _vulnerability _she was putting off.

"H-Hello, I'm the… the new kid," the girl admitted.

She was the epitome of the word 'demure'. Her eyes were downcast, head slightly bowed, her voice was soft, and her hands were clasped in front of her. No one was able to notice the eyes, the voice, or the hands, or really anything about her, except for the vibe. High school really was a place where anarchy and hegemony ruled, and this girl was just begging to be jumped on… or, protected. But, protection, and the nobility it required, really wasn't really something that could be found easily among teenagers. Everyone in the room, whether with pity or malicious glee, was analyzing how easy it would be to dominate over the girl.

Except for one person.

They were all broken out of their trance by the sudden sound of the paperback Kaiba had been reading forcefully slapping against the surface of his desk, effectively bringing them back to their senses. No one looked back at the source of the sound or questioned why it had been made. Even the new girl didn't lift her eyes to see what the cause of it was. It was as if she already knew the unspoken rule to take no notice of what Kaiba did, for her own good.

Ms. Liddy took action. "Come on in! What's your name? Where are you from?" The teacher's exuberance seemed to put the new girl off, like she was afraid of being attacked by the exceptionally friendly teacher. Kaiba glared at the teacher, keeping watch on her, before pretending to go back to his book, really keeping an ear tuned to what was going on around him, annoyed that he had to.

"I'm Kisara Belikova. I'm from Russia."

"Russia," Bakura muttered. He felt as if he knew the girl.

"Oh, how marvelous that you've come all that way! I'm Ms. Liddy." She might have run across the room to greet the girl if it weren't for her wobbly high heels. She and Kisara met halfway across the room and shook hands. Yugi noticed she had lovely, slim hands, and a very graceful walk. Then, he turned his attention to the really pretty cool hat since he knew Joey would probably question him if he had noticed it later.

"It's very nice to meet you, Ki- Ki-… Kee-sarah?"

"Kisara," the new girl, Kisara, repeated. The way she said it the 'r' was rolled, almost into a purr, and the 'ki' was fast with little emphasis on the 'i', the 'sar' was drawn out a slight bit, and the final 'a' was just a gentle 'uh' at the end of her name.

"Oh, uh, well…" Ms. Liddy went on. "Like I said, it's very nice to meet you… But, I'm afraid this school has a no hat policy that's pretty strictly kept."

_Go Ms. Liddy!_ Joey thought, an expectant grin on his face. Yugi felt warm breath on the back of his neck from Joey leaning so far forward in anticipation.

A slight wince passed over the new girl's face. She hesitantly put a hand to her hat and paused it there, the action begging Ms. Liddy not to make her take it off.

"Sorry, dear," Ms. Liddy said, feeling sympathy for the poor, fragile new girl. "But, it's a rule, and if I don't make you follow it, someone else will."

The girl nodded, squeezed her eyes shut, and then pulled the hat off in a quick drag of her wrist.

The hair that came tumbling out was pure white, hung almost to her knees, and was completely and smoothly straight, despite being confined in the hat. It flashed as it tumbled down in the light, making it seem almost metallic, while the obvious softness encouraged the idea of silk. Everyone was breathless. Even Kaiba had slightly widened eyes at the display the new girl presented, but, for some reason, he didn't feel surprised… just a sense of recognition that went deeper than it should have.

"Now I know you!" Bakura practically shouted. "You're Kitty! Kitty Belle!"

The girl inclined her head, causing the waves of hair to shift and shimmer. She didn't seem happy about being "discovered."

"Oh, wow. It's great to meet you," Bakura continued, an enraptured smile on his cherubic face. "You're just… yeah, you're so cool."

"Thanks," the girl mumbled. She was trying to tuck the hat into her jacket pocket, but the material was slick and it just kept slipping out. She turned her slightly blushing face back to Ms. Liddy in a half-hearted attempt to forestall the onslaught she knew was coming. "I heard you talking about that school-wide project, or something. I don't have any essays here, so, uh…" Her voice was as gentle as a feather brushing against your skin, but it trembled.

"Yes, right… Let's work something out," Ms. Liddy haltingly proposed. She was completely fascinated by the dazzling hair of her new student. She cleared her throat. "Olivia, could you please close the shades for me?" she asked the student on the other side of the empty desk by Joey, who obliged. "Thank you."

With the shades covering the windows, Kisara's hair wasn't as blindingly reflective, but it was still one of the coolest things that the class had ever seen. She and Ms. Liddy went over to the teacher's desk to discuss

"I wish my hair was like that," Yugi heard Tea breathe to herself.

"So, spill, Bakura. Who is she?" Joey asked, leaning across the aisle.

Bakura tore his eyes from the new girl to give Joey a disbelieving look. "You were one of the finalists in Duelist Kingdom, Battle City, and the KC Grand Prix, and you don't know who Kitty Belle is?"

"Uh, no?" Joey responded, a completely confounded look on his face. "Why? Should I know her?"

"It's no wonder no one takes you seriously as a duelist, Joey! Yugi, tell me you know," Bakura pleaded, turning to Yugi and ignoring the murderous look that Joey had put on for him.

"Well, uh, um… Look, she introduced herself as 'Kisara', not as Kitty. That's most likely thrown me off, probably Joey, too," Yugi tried to defend himself and his friend, avoiding Bakura's eyes and tripping over the new girl's name.

"Yeah, sure," Bakura said, a supremely disgusted look on his face.

"Just tell us, dude," Tristan said somewhat dreamily. Drool was practically dripping down his chin as he watched the new girl. "What's so great about Ki- Ki- Kitty, you know, besides the obvious?" Joey felt it was time to release some pent-up anger at Bakura as well as bring Tristan back to earth. He leaned over and whapped Tristan upside the head, killing two birds with one stone.

"Ouch, man! What the hell?!"

"Tristan, enough of that sort of language in my class," Ms. Liddy admonished.

"Sorry, Ms. Liddy." The miserable look on Tristan's face from being chewed out by his crush/teacher was hugely comical.

"Bakura, please just tell us," Tea cajoled to get him to tell them what he knew.

_Yes, please, _the Pharaoh put in. Even he was interested now that the conversation had turned to something he knew: dueling.

"Well, ignoring all the other accomplishments she has under her belt, she holds the world record for the amount of life points she beat an opponent by, _and_ she's Pegasus's goddaughter."

"_His goddaughter!"_ Joey said, his face bearing an almost appalled look on it.

"Yeah. Her mother was somehow related to his wife, and Kitty was his wife's favorite cousin or something, so she's his favorite, now."

"Whoa," Joey stated. He turned to Tristan, a smirk on his face. "Ya still interested in her now that she's related to Pegasus?"

Tristan gave Kisara a look that was forlorn and torn. He sighed, "I suppose not. But, it was nice while it lasted."

"While what lasted?" Tea scoffed.

"Just drop it, will ya?!"

_How many life points did she win by?_ the Pharaoh asked.

"Bakura? Yami wants to know how much she won by."

Bakura looked him right in the eyes, almost like he was trying to see the ancient spirit inside of him, before answering steadily, "Fourteen thousand."

Everyone's jaw dropped.

'You're shitting us!" Tristan accused quietly, not wanting to be reprimanded for cussing again.

"I'm not. They play way differently in Russia than we do here. They allow the loser's life points to go into the negatives, find out the difference between the players' points, then add to that how many points the loser went below zero, and finally subtract 100 points for each turn each player took. All of that adds up to the final life point total of the winner."

"Sounds really complicated," Tea commented dazedly.

"It is, but that's how they and several countries in that area decide who their national champions are."

"So… what? Whoever, whether they're a rookie what, is crowned the champ at the end of the year by how much they won by?" Joey questioned somewhat skeptically.

"Well, yes, but first your duel does have to have an official attending to have it qualify for the running. But, really, that's the only thing you need to have it count as an attempt at the title. And, it's not a yearly thing, Joey. Once a champion's been crowned it's _their_ score that needs to be beat, and they get to remain champion until it's beaten, no matter how many years it may take."

"Don't know why _you're_ dissing rookies, Joey," Tristan muttered.

"So, since she'd the current holder of the record in the whole world, let alone Russia…" Yugi put in.

Bakura nodded. "She's still considered to be Russia's national champ. And, she won that title when she was fourteen, over three years ago."

"Dang," Joey said. "… Ever notice how all the duelist champs seem to like Domino?"

Tea and Yugi laughed, Bakura merely smiled. Tristan was still too depressed over Kisara being related to Pegasus to really find it funny. In the back row, Kaiba's lips and nose twisted into a sneer.

"If you guys want more information about this sort of stuff, whether it's related to Kitty or not, you could probably go to Kaiba. He'd know all about it," Bakura suggested.

That sobered everyone up.

Joey snorted. "Yeah, right. And, Moneybags would just tell us that kind of stuff out of the goodness of his stone cold heart. Is that what you're thinking?"

"Good point," Bakura conceded. Kaiba was amazed that Wheeler actually had something right for once.

"Maybe if we see Mokuba any time soon, he'd tell us," Yugi proposed. "He usually knows about this kind of stuff, too."

"Good idea, Yug," Joey said, glaring back to where Kaiba was reading his paperback. Or, at least, that's what it looked like Kaiba was doing. "He probably has to know that sort of stuff or else Kaiba might fire him."

Kaiba's lips turned white and disappeared into a thin, spiteful line. His eyes would have burnt holes in his book from the heat of his anger if they could.

"Come on, Joey," Tea began. "He doesn't treat everyone like he treats you."

"Oh, yeah?" Joey started.

_I wonder what Kaiba does know about Kisara…_ Yami pronounced her name correctly within Yugi's head.

Probably a lot. He seems to like knowing things, if just for the sake of knowing them.

_Indeed. It would be interesting to know why so many high-caliber duelists do wind up in Domino._

Yugi grinned. _Kaiba probably knows that too, _he joked. Yami snorted.

… _I don't think I like her. Kisara, I mean, _Yami commented.

What? Why not? We don't even really know her yet.

_I don't know. I'm just getting a feeling that… if she could, she'd… I don't know. _The Pharaoh sighed in exasperation. _I just don't know… something's not right is all._

"So, now that that's sorted out!" Ms. Liddy declared, commanding the class's attention. "Alright, how many of you have an essay with you that you wouldn't mind reading right now?" she asked, moving to the center of the front of the class, leaving Kisara to stand huddled by the desk.

Yugi, Tea, and a few others raised their hands.

"Okay, that's good. Remember, we can't do everyone on Friday." She looked at Joey for an extended second. He blushed and scratched his head, not meeting her gaze.

"Instead of reading, Ki- Ms. Belikova is going to spend the next several minutes telling us about herself and answering questions. A flinch flashed across Ms. Belikova's face. Tristan found it cute, and was once again hit by remorse over her familial connections.

"Ms. Belikova?" Ms. Liddy stepped back, trembling on her unsteady shoes. Kisara carefully stepped to where the teacher had been standing, her head tucked down, not meeting anyone's eyes.

She was a few feet in front of Yugi, so he was able to hear the quiet, shaky sigh she made before she lifted her head and began.

Now, everyone was hit by how the blue of her eyes contrasted with her skin and hair. They were caught by the darkness of them when the rest of her was so fair. In the back of the class, Seto lifted his head and was struck by the thought, _She reminds me of a chessboard._ The blue being like the black marble squares and figures of his current chessboard, and her skin and hair the white parts.

"As I said, I'm Kisara Belikova, but I'd rather you just called me Kitty."

_She doesn't think we can get her name right,_ the Pharaoh accused.

Well, we can't. She's just trying to help us out. Anyway, it's kind of a cute nickname.

But, can't you tell? She doesn't want to be called 'Kitty'. It annoys her.

I guess...? But, I don't see why it matters so much to you.

It just seems like she's treating us like idiots, is all.

Well, she doesn't know about you, so she can't be treating you like an idiot. Cool it, Yami, and be quiet. I can barely hear her as it is, and she's right there.

"I'm seventeen. I've moved here from Moscow, Russia, where my dad is the CEO of a company the builds laptops."

_She and Kaiba have probably met before through that connection, then, _Yami muttered.

Hnn, Yugi responded.

"I've had a few jobs here and there, and the reason I'm here is because of a job opportunity I was offered, and," she shrugged, "I guess I just wanted a change of scenery, too… Are there any questions?" She asked with a look of trepidation on her actually really beautiful, downturned face.

A girl in the third row began, ignoring the fact that others were raising their hands, and started spitting out rapid-fire questions.

"You said you were Ki- whatever Belikova _and_ you said you were Kitty Belle. Are you also Kat Belvsky, the model and singer? Are those shoes Prada? Is there going to be a fashion shoot here in Domino?! Or, do you have a new recording contract? Will you be using a different stage name than you have in the past? Will it be different music? Do you think I could be a model?"

The class was silent, staring at the somewhat crazed girl, a junior, who was known to be a fashionista outside of school, before turning to Kisara for the answers.

"Yes, I am also Kat Belvsky. Uh," she paused to look down at her shoes, high heels that were like the teacher's, only a bit higher with not so thin heels, and a color blue close to the school uniform's skirt. "No, these were designed by a, uh, colleague of mine in the, um, fashion world." She was obviously uncomfortable about talking about herself like this. "If there are any fashion shoots here, then I don't know about them. I do, actually, have a recording contract in the area." The girl gasped and squealed in delight. "I'm not allowed to say anything other than that it will be under a different stage name." She paused, chewing her lip, hoping that the girl wouldn't wait for her to answer her last question. It was hard enough being in front of all these people, answering questions, without also having to squash people's dreams for them. The girl waited.

"Since I don't know anything about you," she started hesitantly, "I wouldn't know if you could be a model or not. I'd suggest staying away from that world either way… Anyone else?" She really looked to be in pain for having so much attention on her like this.

Someone raised their hand and Kisara nodded to them, but, just as the person was opening their mouth to ask his question, he was interrupted.

"_What do you mean to stay away?!"_ The fashionista looked like she was about to break down in tears. A few were actually dribbling out of the corners of her eyes, ruining her purple mascara.

The next sigh Kisara made was more angry and exasperated, surprising Yugi, Yami, and everyone else that heard it; they hadn't expected such a sound from someone who had acted so compliant so far.

"If you want to never eat anything again and don't mind being surrounded by people who hate your guts and will think you're fat even when you're a skeleton, go right on ahead and become a model. If not, then just forget it." The volume of her speech was low, but the tone was fairly harsh. She stared the girl in the eye, a slight frown between her dark eyes, until the girl dropped her shocked gaze. Suddenly, Kisara was contrite and subservient again. She looked down at the floor and muttered, "Sorry, I'm so sorry…"

After a pause, a few people raised their hands again. She twitched her hand in the direction of the kid behind Olivia, in the fourth row, who'd been cut short before.

"I- I remember you from an art exhibition called _Monochromatic_ in New York, I think. Was that you there, or, uh, not?" The kid was just being polite, or insecure, or both when asking her if it had been her. She wasn't the type of person you easily forgot seeing.

"Yeah, that was me…" And, that was all that he got from her. The kid nodded, somewhat bemused. He'd been kind of wishing for a more elaborate response than that, like why she'd been thee, but he realized that he was going to have to live with what he got, the new girl being too shy to go on.

_Why is she so uncomfortable with this? _The Pharaoh asked.

Maybe she'd just really modest. It's not as if she has to have an evil motive or anything. Not everyone is up to something. Yugi was getting really irritated with Yami's attempts to make the new girl into a bad guy.

The next kid put his hand up and started asking his question before Kisara even called on him.

"So, you're a model, a singer, and the daughter of a probably really rich CEO…"

She didn't attempt an answer; she was obviously only going to respond to what she had to. All she did was stand there tensely and, to an extent, feebly, waiting.

"What else do you do, then?" the guy asked with a shrug and a roll of the eyes, as if he could hardly believe that everything she'd said was true. In truth, Yugi was beginning to doubt that she was much of a champion at anything, much less a game like Duel Monsters that required stamina and domination of the game. Just looking at the Pharaoh, Kaiba, Joey, and even to himself to some extent, there was a slight to major vicious streak that was part of the people who triumphed in Duel Monsters.

"I play a few instruments… paint a little," she answered softly.

"Which instruments?" the kid on the other side of the fourth row asked.

"Stuff with strings, the flute," she answered ineffectually.

'Do you play the guitar?" the same kid asked.

She nodded, fidgeting.

'What kind of guitar?" the kid questioned, drawing it out as if for a stupid person. Yugi recognized him as being the bass player in the school jazz band.

"Acoustic," she answered, seeming especially disconcerted now. The kid lost his interest pretty rapidly after that.

"She plays some of her own music in her songs," the fashionista mentioned out of the blue from within her little bubble of burst dreams. A few people made noises of appreciation, the people that played instruments themselves. Except the bass player, who was now definitely disinterested.

"She's also a duelist," Bakura put in, not so quietly. The room hushed. You really didn't go to Domino High, or live in Domino at all, without having some sort of appreciation for the sport, or art, if you will, of dueling.

Kaiba had been waiting for it to come to this.

"Really?" the person to the right of Tristan asked, the girl murmuring the question.

"Yeah, a good one, too, or so I've heard," Joey put in, not giving any indication that he'd just learned that himself a little over five minutes ago.

Everyone in the class but Kaiba looked at the new girl with interest glimmering in their eyes. Even if you were at the bottom of the social food chain, as Kisara was appearing to be, being a good duelist in this town could get you pretty far.

Kaiba had an idea of what Kisara's response would be already, having kept track of her since she _was_ a world record holding duelist, and a national champ. But, frankly, anything more he wanted to know about Kisara he could find out more easily and accurately with a laptop with Internet connection than with a class of curious fools.

"I'm retired," she said curtly after a moment, looking over everyone's head instead of at them. A few people gasped and a couple others, like Joey, actually said, "What?!"

Who ever really retired from dueling? Especially when they were as young as Kitty?

"But, your godfather's Pegasus!" Bakura said incredulously. "He was the one who created Duel Monsters! I mean you've probably had access to several cards that the rest of us have never even dreamed of! You're the national champion of Russia! And, you're retired?!" Bakura seemed about to have aneurysm. Yugi realized that Bakura must have really idolized this girl to be so upset with her lack of interest in dueling.

"Yes, I'm retired," she repeated, still looking above them rather than at them all. "I may have had access to one or two cards that the rest of you haven't, but, other than that, I'm not all that special… Are there any more questions?" Everyone was quiet now. "I'll just take my seat then," she muttered.

Shaking herself into action, Ms. Liddy said, "Thank you very much Kitty for sharing. Let's give her a hand, people." She began clapping, and most of the class followed her example in a half-hearted way. Bakura was in too much of a shock to clap, and Joey just flatly refused, feeling as if she had personally insulted him with her refusal to duel.

"What a snob," he muttered to Yugi, who was clapping.

"Maybe, or maybe not," he replied noncommittally.

"Puh," Joey said.

_I agree with Joey this time,_ Yami put in.

I wish I didn't… But, we probably don't have the full story. She could be really nice, just…

_Just what?_ Yami questioned, annoyed.

I don't know, Yugi responded, exasperated.

… I still don't have a good feeling about her, and not just because of her being retired.

Yugi sighed, his eyes downcast. _Yeah, yeah._

Yugi turned around to face Joey. Joey was busy glaring at Kisara as she gathered her blue book bag from where she'd set it down next to the teacher's desk. She was trying to stuff her once-infamous black hat into it; she'd been messy with it the whole time she'd been talking, trying to get it to stay in her pocket and giving her something else to focus on besides the questions. Joey wasn't too busy, though, not to notice when Yugi turned his attention his way. He shifted his eyes to him and raised an eyebrow.

"If she decides to sit next to you, will you please be nice to her?" Yugi almost begged.

Joey sent a panicked and angry look at the empty desk beside him. Tea turned around and glowered at him, backing Yugi up in his attempt to make the new girl feel welcome.

"Oh, come on," Joey whined, looking back and forth between the two of them.

"Be nice, Joey Wheeler," Tea repeated Yugi. "I'd like to have another girl hanging out with us for once. So, don't you even think about messing this up for me," she threatened him.

Joey groaned, lifting his eyes to the ceiling before letting his head flop back down on his desk. "Fine," he mumbled into the desk. He lifted his head up again. "I'll be nice ta her, _if_ she sits next ta me." He gave them a mischievous grin and lifted his head a little higher. "Who knows? Maybe she'll sit next ta her number one fan over there," he said, nodding at Bakura.

"Oh, shut up," Bakura told him, not even bothering to look at him, his petulant British accent unintentionally making him sound adorable.

"Hey, it ain't my fault that your hero is a—"

"Shh!" Tea shushed him. Kisara was heading their way. Joey sighed, and then put on a big smile that stretched his face and emphasized his chin horribly.

"I said to be nice to her, not to drive her away with your creepiness," Tea hissed at him before turning around to paste her own more genuine, more pleasant smile to her lips. Yugi saw the quick flash of envy that went through her eyes at the sight of the new girl's hair swinging back and force with the rhythmic movement of her walk.

Joey turned down the creepy factor of his smile, actually seeming like he might enjoy getting to know a new person. Joey was still a pretty friendly person, despite being a jerk every now and again. But, it turned out that, whether Joey was prepared to bust a gut to make her feel welcome, or if he'd decided to simply tell her to buzz off, it didn't matter. She walked between Yugi and Tea, completely bypassed Joey and the empty desk, and continued on to the back of the room.

Yugi, Joey, Tea, Tristan, and even Bakura, who'd been glaring at her huffily, all had identical expressions of jaw-dropped, wide-eyed surprise and horror.

"Someone needs to stop her," Bakura said.

"God, Kaiba's gonna rip inta her the moment she gets within reach. Poor new girl," Joey mourned. Suddenly faced with the idea of his worst antagonist demolishing the weakling new girl's self-esteem and feelings, Joey was able to get more of a sense of the girl's shyness and delicateness, and realized, that despite her no longer being an advocator of dueling, she still didn't deserve the fate that awaited her at Kaiba's ruthless hand. He stood up to go and retrieve the wayward girl and bring her back to more friendly territories when the impossible happened.

She was several paces into Kaiba's realm, and was actually right before his desk. She stood there for a moment, Kaiba's outstretched legs in the way of her moving over to the desk she was headed to. He looked up from the pages of his book in favor of a momentary glance at her face and expression, both of which were invisible to Yugi and his friends due to the direction she was facing and the curtain of her hair that blocked them. They don't know what he saw, but, whatever it was, it made Kaiba slowly pull his legs in, just enough for the new girl to move between them and the desk in front of him, to go take the seat to his right.

I guess she just completely broke the unwritten rules of high school regarding where to sit. Right, Yugi? … Yugi?

Yugi didn't even hear the Pharaoh. It was as if his brain had just shut down. He and the rest of his friends were possibly even more shocked by Kaiba's act of courtesy, no matter how miniscule it was, than they'd been shocked by her willingly going to the back of the class when it was so obviously sparsely populated.

"Maybe they know each other from before with dueling or with her father's company?" Tea ventured first.

"Yeah…" Yugi said. "Maybe they're friends…"

"Kaiba doesn't have friends," Tristan said.

"Never has Moneybags had a friend," Joey concurred, shaking his head in disbelief.

_No,_ the Pharaoh sighed. _Kaiba really doesn't have any friends,_ he finished somberly.

_Perhaps not,_ Yugi agreed. _… But, maybe Kitty doesn't have any friends, either._


	2. My Girl

**Thanks to everyone who added this story to their Story Alerts, and especially to those of you who reviewed. Forgive Seto's somewhat random protective urges and mood swings; he doesn't know what the hell's going on either. Also, try to keep the Kaiba from the show in your thoughts. I tried to make him seem as callous towards people as he appears in the anime, but I'm worried that I gave him a little too much humanity throughout. And, excuse the stereotyping of cheerleaders.**

**I don't own any of the Yugioh related bits.**

Yugi, Tea, and two other people ended up reading their essays that period. No one else had any of theirs with them, so the class had the last ten minutes of the fifty-minute period to themselves.

A few minutes after the last person read their essay, Kisara, watching her hands as they played with a scrap of paper she'd found on her desk, murmured to Kaiba, "You didn't have an essay with you?" as if she already knew the truth.

"I'm not going to volunteer myself for something so trivial," he answered, also not looking at her, keeping his eyes on the paperback he'd brought out again. It was George Orwell's _Animal Farm_. For a brief moment he pondered, not really caring of it did, over whether such a book would be insulting to the new girl who came from a country that had once been part of the Soviet Union. He'd read the book for the first time as an assignment during his years of homeschooling, finding that, after also reading Orwell's _1984_ for the same reason, he appreciated Orwell's crafted realities. Generally, Kaiba didn't like to reread books, or like what he called "make-believe" literature, preferring auto and regular biographies, true crime mysteries, 'how-to' books, and other reality-based works rather than fiction. But, occasionally, something would find its way into his reading pile that wasn't expressly literal or real, and that he might consider reading multiple times.

He had a feeling that Kisara Belikova was more of a daydreaming fiction reader. Her appearance itself was utterly ethereal, seeming to have very little substance to it. Kaiba imagined, in incredibly romantic terms for him, that were she out in a snowstorm, she would burst into a thousand snowflakes and disappear as a flurry into the storm at the first gust of wind that hit her. Even he had to admit, if only to himself, that it was an incredibly beautiful effect of her colorless presentation. But, he still had the feeling, no matter how shallow it was to be feeling it, that her appearance reflected her personality in that she wasn't stably in the _here_ and _now_.

_She's not going to survive. _The thought just came into his mind, along with an immense surge of hatred of the very idea of it, and a need to make sure that it never came true.

"Give me your schedule," he ordered her out of the blue. She jumped at the sudden sound of his voice, finally turning to face him. Then, after opening her eyes wide as she processed his request, she began rummaging through her somewhat scruffy blue book bag.

As she searched, Seto put _Animal Farm_ away, and pulled out a red, felt-tipped pen. She found the schedule and handed it over. "What are you going to do with it?" Her voice was barely audible, not that he didn't hear her.

Seto didn't respond immediately. He was busy making various red marks all over her schedule in a peculiarly quick fashion born of being a CEO and someone who despised slothfulness.

Seto had no idea why he wanted to take care of this girl so badly. Every person he'd met except Mokuba and a few, very few, others had consistently reinforced his opinion that knowing how to get along with others was pointless. But, with this one girl… he just needed to keep her safe, the end. There was no further explanation that he could find within his consciousness. It was like he owed it to the girl.

In barely a minute, the page was covered in red marks and Seto turned to the new girl.

"You and I share five of our seven classes. I've circled those ones. The other two, I'll take you to them, and you'll wait for me after they've finished and I'll get you to the next class. Everything else I've written," he continued, handing it over to her, "is various tips about the rooms, teachers, etc. that should help get you through the day."

"Thank you," Kisara said after a stunned moment, eyes big with gratitude and surprise.

Most people would have said something like 'don't mention it' or 'it was nothing', or even a basic 'you're welcome'. Seto Kaiba didn't see much use in those kinds of terms, so he simply added bluntly, "We aren't going to be able to talk quite as freely until Gym, if then, so if you have something you need to say, do so now."

He'd avoided her gaze for most of their almost nonexistent dialogue, either staring straight ahead or at her schedule for the most part, but as silence wore on after his statement, he felt the need to look at her and see what her reaction had been. She was just staring at the scribbled-upon schedule, no expression on her face, but she wasn't reading what he'd written.

Seto took the chance to observe her at close range. She had long strands of hair constantly flowing across her face, like little streaming waterfalls, but she paid them no mind. Her eyes weren't as dark as they had looked at the front of the classroom. They, actually, were the same cobalt blue of his own, only the shapes of their eyes differed, his angled and sharp, hers larger, less slanting, and further softened by the hair stealing across her face… Her skin also looked really soft. She huddled in on herself in the seat. If the rest of the desk wasn't in the way, Seto would have bet that she'd have pulled her long legs up, tucked her knees under her chin, and sat like a frightened baby bird with its wings wrapped around its body to try to keep away the chills.

Seto felt a surge of violence rise as he realized he'd put her into the defenseless, breakable category again. He wanted to trash something.

But, then Kisara turned back to him, a small but _there_ smile gracing her features for the first time that day, actually, for a much longer time than that. But, Seto didn't know that, and was caught up in this lovely little grin for a moment before the bell rang, not that he let it show.

She still knew she had gotten to him. Gods only knew how, but she _knew_, and it caused her smile to grow slightly before dissolving completely.

He stood up, a 6' 1" tower of influence and cruelty, who was nevertheless followed down the aisle by the delicate beacon of light that was Kisara. A bunch of the kids had already left or were waiting their turn as there was a pile-up at the door, but the ones who lingered a little, including the gang, watched avidly and disbelievingly as Kaiba allowed the new girl to trail him.

As the two passed by the still-filled front desks, Joey swiftly stood up between Kaiba and the new girl, effectively creating a human barrier that Kisara couldn't get past.

"Hey, there!" he greeted cheerfully, if almost desperately.

"Hey there…" Tristan copied inaudibly from his desk, eyes glazed over at the pretty girl being so close to him.

"Uh, hi," she mumbled back uncertainly. She looked past Joey at Seto for direction, not knowing if Joey was being friendly or just weird, and truly not wanting to have anything to do with him either way. Kaiba halted, but didn't turn around or seemingly give the interaction any of his attention. He just stood, waiting for her by the door, settled into his arrogant stance, as if none of it really mattered to him. Yet, he still waited.

"So, Kitty, ya need directions ta ya next class?" Joey asked, bemused at what had the appearance of a bond between Kaiba and the new girl.

"Yeah, we could take you anywhere you needed to go," Tea added in from behind Joey.

"Anywhere!" Bakura mimicked. He'd gotten over most of his hurt at her being retired, and was rotating back to 'adoring fan' mode.

"No, thank you. I've already had someone offer to show me around… Please move," she told Joey quietly, who'd, in his shock, become completely unaware that he was still blocking her way.

"Hurry it up, Wheeler," Kaiba joined the conversation from across the room, still not turning to face them, his features in shadow. "I don't want to have to admit that you exist enough to be able to make us late."

"Us…?" Yugi dazedly muttered.

"Eh? What did you say, Kaiba?" Joey yelled angrily, breaking out of his trance, and moving out of Kisara's way in order to crawl partially over his desk in preparation to attack.

"You heard me perfectly well, mutt," Seto responded. Kisara, who had scurried past Joey the first chance she got, came to stand beside him. To Bakura, Yugi, and Tea, who were watching her more closely than either the enamored Tristan or the infuriated Joey, it looked like the new girl picked herself up more, stood straighter, held her head higher, as she reached Kaiba. "Unless you're deaf as well as dumb, that is." With that parting remark, Kaiba held the door open for the new girl, and they exited the room… together.

"I'm gonna kill him!" Joey nearly forgot to keep his voice down, Ms. Liddy still being in the room.

"No you won't, Joey," Tea interrupted.

"Yeah, not until we get a better idea of what's going on here," Yugi added.

"What does it matter? Kaiba's just keepin' her around for arm candy, like he did with dat Meg cheerleader," Joey did shout this time. Ms. Liddy looked up from the papers on her desk.

"Don't you four have classes this period?" she asked of Joey, Tristan, Tea, and Bakura. Yugi actually did have Ms. Liddy's second period Sophomore English class, so he didn't need to go anywhere.

"Yes, sorry, Ms. Liddy," Bakura apologized, and began gathering his stuff. Tea, Tristan, and Joey followed suit.

"We'll see you later, Yugi," Tea said.

"Yeah, see ya, Tea," he responded.

The four left the room, Joey huffing and puffing all the way to the door. When they got out to the hallway, there was a visible wake left by Kaiba and Kitty as they headed to their next class.

"You have to admit guys, alone Kaiba's pretty awe-inspiring, but now with Kitty beside him, it's even better… or worse, depending on your point of view," Bakura remarked, a slight grin on his face.

"It's more of something, that's for sure," Tristan said, actually coherent for once. "It's just hard to pinpoint exactly what it is."

"Mmph," Joey commented. "Whatever it is, he's still a jerk."

"I don't think any of us were arguing that, Joey," Tea put in.

"Hn, good. See you guys in a bit," he called to Tristan and Bakura as he and Tea went off to their next class.

"See ya!" Tristan called back.

"Bye!"

"Later, guys," Tea was the last to say. "Joey, wait up!"

As Kaiba and Kisara headed down the hall, everyone reduced their conversations to mumbles and stared at them as they passed. No one stepped out in front of them; in fact, they cleared the way for them. Kaiba was used to the shock-and-awe his presence created in the student body, and having people avoid being in his way was a usual part of life, but even he had never experienced it on this grand of scale while walking alone in the school. Other places, sure; people came close to genuflecting to him. But, high school was full of snot-nosed punks who didn't know their place yet and didn't feel the need to bow to their superiors. They would learn, but for now Kaiba put up with the occasional sneer or challenge, which he would quickly demolish, and still there was a degree of fear and respect that caused the teenage masses to generally avoid and leave him alone.

They realized he was beyond their grasp and out of their league.

Now, though, with the exquisite and striking appearance of Kisara by his side, they were able to add to and compliment their already almost other-worldly standings, and leave the students breathless. If Kisara had been alone, she would have gotten glances and mutterings, but essentially would have been left to flee and weave through the crowds, while, if left to himself, Kaiba would have been spared little attention, but people still would have kept away from his presence. It both pleased and disgusted Seto that their supposed "peers" were struck dumb by the two of them together, unable to take their eyes away, but equally unable to approach them. Kisara, however, didn't like it at all.

"Do they have to act like that?" she questioned him, teeth clenched, and arms tightly wrapped around her ribcage.

"You're a celebrity," Kaiba said quietly, not showing any pity. "You should be used to this."

Her lips twitched slightly. "I came here to get _away_ from this sort of thing," she hissed back, revealing another of many reasons that she'd come to Domino.

"Then, you should have put your hat back on," Kaiba pointed out emotionlessly.

Kisara stared at him for a second as they walked, and he stared right back, both of them wrapped up in his last words. Suddenly, Kisara began laughing. It wasn't really more than a loud giggle, but it was the first time she'd laughed in months and she wasn't going to get back in the habit very quickly. It was still a pleasant giggle, and it helped relieve some of the stress she'd had built up.

Everyone quieted completely, and watched her as her laughter faded as quickly as it had come on.

They reached the next classroom. Kaiba walked with Kisara up to the teacher, Mrs. Hildan.

"Hello, Mr. Kaiba," she greeted pleasantly enough. Most of the teachers were intimidated by him, but he'd come to develop a fragment of respect for Mrs. Hildan. If only she were able to speed up the classes she might even be able to keep his interest… then again, no she wouldn't.

"Mrs. Hildan." He nodded at her before turning and waving a hand at Kisara. "This is Kisara Belikova." He pronounced her name perfectly, the inflections and rolls in the exact correct places. It pleased Kisara that he cared enough to say it right and not just use the stupid, childish nickname her father had come up when he got "tired of saying the mouthful" her mother had named her.

Kisara stepped forward to shake the English teacher's hand. Mrs. Hildan hadn't shown her shock at Kaiba actually introducing someone personally, but the sight of the lovely Kisara and her streaming, pearly white hair, just as pale skin, and dark blue eyes tipped her over the edge and caused her mouth to open slightly. Being the proper lady she was, however, she immediately rectified her surprised state. She wasn't the improper, overly-exuberant Ms. Liddy, after all.

"It's nice to meet you, Mrs. Hildan," Kisara murmured.

"You, too, Ki…?"

"'Kitty' works fine," she said unenthusiastically.

"Kitty... Well, here's the Honors English IV textbook, my dear." Mrs. Hildan handed the huge book over. "We don't use it often, we mostly read novels in here, but bring it every day, just in case. At the very least it will help you build up your muscles," she said dryly. Kitty smiled politely. "You came just in time; we'll be starting a new unit soon, so don't worry about needing to catch up or anything. Mr. Kaiba will help you if you need anything." She said this more as a question to Kaiba than an actual statement.

"Sure," he said. The bell rang and Seto began walking off to his assigned seat in the back where two other unfortunate people sat in the arranged square of desks.

"You can go join Mr. Kaiba. I'm sure it will be a change for him to sit with someone next to him," the teacher commented wryly. She got another polite smile. "Well, I hope you enjoy this class, Kitty."

"I hope so, too," Kisara muttered before heading to her new seat.

Mrs. Hildan waited till Kisara sat down before starting the class.

"Everyone, attention up here, if you please. We have a new student, Kitty, so everyone turn around and stare at her now…" Kisara blushed and sank down in her chair. She'd actually thought that Mrs. Hildan might be cool, but this was just humiliating. The staring went on for about five seconds, then, "Now that that's out of our system, we'll get started on today's lesson… That means I want you to look at _me_ now," she said in a warning tone of voice. They all reluctantly turned away from the new girl. Kisara let out a small, shuddering sigh. Out of the corner of her eye she caught Seto smirking at her. She turned to glare at him and his smirk grew.

She realized that just because he was putting up with her that didn't mean he liked her or thought of her as a friend yet, or that he ever would. That was a depressing thought, but Kisara realized that it would probably be better for her to be realistic in this situation than not.

"We're starting our _Scarlet Letter_ unit today. Each of our four table-groups is going to be assigned a main character after we go through the first few chapters to analyze as we read through the rest of the story…"

Kaiba tuned out then, already having read this book, too, and tried to resist the urge to pull out _Animal Farm_. He didn't feel like insulting Mrs. Hildan right now, especially after she'd dealt with the idiotic class and their need to gawk at the new kid so well and swiftly. But, god_damn_, he was bored already! He wondered if he had a form of ADD, or something else that would explain why his attention span was about half a second long when he wasn't being challenged or provoked into thought. It was too bad he despised doodling and other such things; that kind of activity could have proven useful in times like this.

Kisara was swishing and twirling her pen around and about with her fingers, down by her side, also bored. It would seem that she had also already read the story. He watched her out of the corner of his eye, and waited until she looked over at him. Wondering if she would be able to tell what he was saying, he mouthed, _Homeschooled?_

She nodded a bit, chewing on her lower lip, before tilting her head from side to side slightly, indecisively.

So, she'd at least been homeschooled for a little while, probably not as much or as extensively as he had been, though.

And, that was the last bit of communication they shared for two periods.

After English, Seto left Kisara at the door to her Art class, which was splattered in paints that made Kisara grin and Seto wince at the randomness. He met up with her afterwards, neither exchanging words, Kisara with a contented smile on her face and a discreet smear of green paint across the fingers of her left hand. They had Senior Gym after that. They simply ran laps for the period inside the gym.

Kisara had decided, after thinking about Seto's comment in first period about wanting to say anything, that there were things she needed to say to Seto, and she'd been prepared to start in then, since they'd been keeping pace with each other with a jarring, unexplainable easiness, and had nothing else to do but run. However, several girls who had been scowling at Kisara and whispering about her before class had started were shadowing them as they ran. Word of her accomplishments, which included the attention she had been getting from Seto, had reached them and made them jealous. One of the girls was the 'Meg cheerleader' Joey had referenced. She and Kaiba had dated for barely three weeks before he broke it off, not being able to stand her and her small-minded dreams of wealth and fame that she'd wanted _him_ to help fulfill. But, her status as being the only girl Kaiba had dated within the school still had an effect on her and her cohorts. Now, though, that status was being threatened in the superficial mind of Meg by the "albino bitch," as she and her cronies had already begun calling Kisara behind her back.

So, in order to get a handle on how major the threat was, the tactless skill of eavesdropping was being employed just a few feet behind Kisara and Kaiba as they ran, ironically ensuring that no words were passed between the two. Kisara had to save all that she had to say until later when there was a vaguely better chance for privacy.

That chance came the period after: lunch. Kaiba's table was the furthest from the lunch line, in the back of the cafeteria, up against the wall. Kaiba, in a rare act of mercy, had Kisara sit with her back to the crowd so that she could avoid all the stares they were getting. Over her right shoulder, Kaiba could see the geek squad trying to get a good look at her over the two tables of people in between them. Occasionally, Kaiba would hear Joey relating some detail or observation to the rest of them.

"They don't look like they're talkin' or nothin'… Jeez, does Kaiba ever eat anythin'? He's, like, anorexic or somethin'… Yeah, right, Tristan! She'd never give you her number! ... Ow!"

Kaiba smirked cruelly. Kisara almost backed down from saying her bit, but… she just really needed to say it.

"My, uh, my family didn't send me here, you know," she murmured, curled in on herself, but meeting his eyes, nevertheless. Seto set his gaze on her and lifted an eyebrow before leaning back against the wall behind him, waiting for her to elaborate.

"My dad, well, didn't, and, uh, neither did Pegasus…" She didn't know where to take it from there, but Kaiba did seem to get it.

Ivan Belikov, Kisara's father, ran a pretty successful company in Russia that made laptops and everything that when into them. The only problem was that Ivan thought his company was more successful than it really was. He'd thought he was such a bloody hot shot that he'd actually invited Kaiba last year to his Russian mansion to propose a business deal, a merger of their companies.

Kaiba had shut him down so fast the guy had whiplash once Seto was done with him. Kaiba suppressed another smirk in Kisara's presence as he thought about how he'd heard that, after that meeting, her father had made Kaiba his sworn enemy and was now out for his blood because he'd turned him down. He seemed to be under the false impression that Kaiba corp. actually needed technology like Belikov's.

Yeah, right. Kaiba Corp. was so much more advanced than Ivan's paltry toys that it was insulting for Belikov to even propose such a deal. After making _that_ fact abundantly clear, Kaiba had immediately left, laughing his head off at the ludicrous offer.

So, it _was_ possible that Ivan would use his daughter to try and get back at Seto for his insulting refusal; he was exactly the kind of guy who would do that sort of thing to try to get even and get ahead. But, Kisara wasn't, as far as Seto could tell, so he wasn't too worried that that was the reason Kisara was in Domino. She seemed to be nothing like her father.

Then, there was Pegasus, who was as crazed as a cuckoo on his best days. He may have tried to set up something like this, if just for the fun of messing with Seto's life, but, again, Kisara didn't seem the type to go along with such a thing.

"Stop worrying, Kisara. Whatever your family is or is not up to, I don't care." He didn't say this in a friendly or tender tone, but neither was he harsh.

Kisara gave a relieved smile that scrunched up her eyes, making her seem even more adorable. She turned down to the salad she'd brought from home, picking and poking at it with her fork. Seto let her play with the greenery before leaning forward and bringing up a subject that had been turning around in _his_ mind.

"Do you hate me, Kisara?"

Kisara's head shot up and there was a shocked, almost hurt look on her face that almost made Seto feel bad about asking the question, but there was a reason behind it, and he wasn't about to take the question back.

"Wha…? Of course not," she breathed out in an exceptionally heartbreaking tone. "Why would I?"

"The world title…" was all he gave in response.

For a moment she remained still. Then, she relaxed and let her shoulders droop in relief. She even gave what sounded like a happy sigh and chuckle.

"No, I definitely don't hate you for _that_."

"I heard that that, that _I,_ was the reason you retired," Seto put in.

She shook her head slowly back and forth, causing her fall of hair to swing from side to side gracefully, catching the light as it stirred. "No," she said again. "That wasn't your fault, anyway. Plus," she began with a sharp glint in her eye and the tiniest of smirks on her face, "the retirement of duelist Kitty Belle had been in the works long before our duel."

Seto just looked at her for a time, something close to admiring becoming apparent in regards to the crafty abilities she was showing lurked inside her. Admittedly, that _could_, though doubtfully, mean trouble for him in the future, but, right now, it was sort of sexy and stimulating.

"What are they talking about, Joey?" came Tea's voice from behind Kisara.

"I don't know; I can't hear what they're sayin'!" was the Brooklyn-accented response. Seto looked to the geek squad, who were now at the almost cleared table right behind Kisara. They'd moved while he and Kisara had been speaking, trying to get the best spot to listen in from. They were as bad as the cheerleaders.

But, Seto figured that even if they had heard anything the lack of context* would stop them in their prying tracks. What would have become obvious was that he and the new girl knew each other before her coming to Domino. And, while that would have gotten the hamster wheels turning in their tiny, little skulls, it wouldn't have been too much of an imposition on his and Kisara's privacy… unless they pursued it (which they would) and got the details on the shared history. Again, it wouldn't have been too awful for Seto, but Kisara seemed to want to have as clean a start as possible, and, for no understandable reason, Seto wanted to help Kisara get what she wanted, and when that involved biting down on the geek squad, Seto was willing enough to oblige.

"_Who_ exactly can't you hear speaking, Wheeler?" Kaiba sneered at the blonde. "Because, we can hear _you_ just fine."

Joey and the rest of the people in his group of friends, which now also included Duke and Serenity, all jumped guiltily and in a frightened manner at the sound of his voice. Of all of them, Yugi and Bakura looked the guiltiest, while Joey was the reddest in the face, since he was the one who'd been called out. When Kisara turned around to look at them, they _all_ got redder in the face.

"Whuh, uh… Hey," Joey greeted awkwardly.

"Hello," Kisara responded distantly and also awkwardly.

"Uh, do ya need any help to ya next class, now?" Wheeler tried to save himself.

"I don't think so—"

"No, she does not. So, you and the rest of your circus freak pals can buzz off now," Seto cut her off. He was starting to get possessive of her. He now had her sitting or running next to him in all of the classes they shared, and he was getting comfortable with her always being there, even if this was only the first day. In his mind, she was slowly becoming _his_.

_Shit. Mokuba is always saying I have psychotic issues._ Never mind the fact that usually his little brother was either making a joke or trying to get Seto's attention when he said that. Still…

He was too impatient to wait for them to get moving. Kaiba stood up, his face hard and lips twisted into something on the verge of vicious. "Come on, Kisara. Let's go," he commanded.

For a moment, Kisara just sat there, and not in fright or any other vulnerable, submissive pose. She was, in fact, looking rebellious and angry over being ordered around.

Seto simply took her sudden change of manner from compliant to mutinous in stride, seeming to accept her hidden, fierce nature as a part of her. His initial urge was to make use of his arrogance and attempt to put her in her place from where she would follow his orders. The only problem was he didn't want her to be subservient to him; he wanted them to be on an equal level, which was a miracle in itself. He couldn't, however, bring himself to say 'please,' and rephrasing his command wasn't an option for him either, since it would mean that his first choice of words had been wrong and he'd made a mistake. The closest he could come to any of that was a slight softening of his features as he looked Kisara in her newly fiery eyes and the holding out of his hand to help her from her seat, a silent petition for her to join him.

It took a moment, but then she smiled an angel's smile, gathered her things into her bag, and took his hand.

"Goodbye," she said in passing to Yugi and the rest, before she and Seto were too far away. She didn't even take notice of the fact that they were all speechless and slack-jawed, which seemed to have become their normal facial expression lately. Kaiba did notice, and all he could do was feel smug and proud of himself for keeping Kisara by his side and away from everyone else.

It was becoming more obvious in Seto's mind that maybe he did have some problems. Not that he'd ever admit it to another living soul… maybe Mokuba, if only to amuse him and make his day.

Fifth period would be beginning soon, so Kaiba took her to their shared Psychology class. This was the most boring class of the day for Seto. The way Mr. Bronze liked to use his students as examples during the class hadn't endeared him to Seto, and likely wouldn't to Kisara. He was lucky he still had a job after he tried to use Kaiba as an example of someone with a narcissistic personality disorder.

After psych, Kaiba led Kisara to her French IV class and then went to be the teacher's assistant in Advanced Calculus where he wrote the tests and proofed the teacher's lectures to make sure he was accurate, all of which wasn't necessarily reserved to this class alone. More and more often lately, the teacher had begun relying on Seto to correct his mistakes and it was starting to seem easier to write the blasted lessons himself. But, if the teacher actually made him start doing the _teaching_ part, he would learn the meaning of pain at Kaiba's hand. Today, Seto spent his time correcting tests from yesterday and pondering whether the ink in his red pen would run out before the class ended.

Once the bell rang, Seto shot out of the class before the teacher could call him back in to look at something. He didn't like to run from anything, but he'd make an exception in this case to avoid the dreaded failings of tomorrow's instructions that would need to be proofed, and to be in time to gather Kisara. He arrived at the door to the French room to find Kisara and Madame Le Fevre speaking to each other eloquently in, surprise, French.

Kaiba followed the conversation loosely, knowing the basics of the language himself, but not well enough to join in the fast-paced conversation himself. He'd have tpo work on that. He finally interrupted the two, and excused himself and Kisara to go to their next class.

When they were several steps down the hall and Madame Le Fevre had gone back into her room, Seto asked Kisara, "If you can speak French that well, why are you talking a French class?"

"So that I can get a chance to speak it without actually going to France," she responded slyly. Seto's lips quirked slightly, as Kisara's curled into a graceful smile.

They were silent the rest of the way to Honors Chemistry, until, just outside the door Kisara muttered, "Thanks for putting up with me"

"Of course," he answered. They entered the classroom and went to the front of the room.

"Perfect," Mr. Vee stated after Kaiba introduced Kisara (as 'Kitty', of course). "He's needed a lab partner for a while, Kitty," Mr. Vee told Kisara with a wink and a thumb jerked in Seto's direction. When Mr. Vee wasn't acting childlike, like he was now, Kaiba was actually fond of him… a bit. He was one of few people who could last more than a few lines in a logical debate with Kaiba… or in a snarking contest. Mr. Vee was the only person besides Mokuba who even had a chance of reaming Seto a new one. And, even then, Seto would respond with something ten times nastier, which would leave Mr. Vee silent, but smiling. Kaiba would joke with him, on his rare good days, that the teacher actually liked having his ass handed to him.

Kisara got another book to stuff in her already bulging bag, and they went back to the corner lab table they would share for the rest of the year. The class passed quickly, the students simply organizing and getting credit for having all their past assignments with them in their required binders.

Mr. Vee came over and tried to coax a conversation out of Kisara. Mostly she was civil and evasive, giving monosyllabic responses whenever she could. Eventually, after Mr. Vee had tried to get Seto to give him a hand getting Kisara to really speak with him, he wandered back to the front of the classroom and answered some petty random questions from the students, just for the heck of it. Mr. Vee, like most of the teachers, taught multiple subjects, so he was in charge of all the science classes of the day, and was full of odd facts that the students actually enjoyed learning, especially when it wasn't part of _their_ curriculum. They also took delight in using Vee's weakness of loving to inform his students of all sorts of scientific details and making him digress from the day's main topic. Kaiba would have been more annoyed by this if it weren't for the fact that Mr. Vee's digressions would reveal information that Seto hadn't previously known from time to time, making the class interesting even to him.

Kisara, not having a binder to organize yet, pulled out a French worksheet she'd gotten from Madame Le Fevre. She had it done in but a few minutes, but she'd had a wide smile as she'd gone through it.

Kaiba had opened his mouth, ready to speak with her about so whatever came to mind in order to give them both something to do, when a girl who'd been running behind them in Gym with Meg asked Mr. Vee a question loudly.

"Mr. Vee? What's an albino?" The whole room became quiet. The girl had a blush on her face, fully aware of the faux pas she was committing, but going through with it all the same. "I mean, they're obviously freaks of nature and everything," she continued brutally, "but what are they _really_."

Mr. Vee actually glared at her for a moment, but still chose to answer her. She was getting enough of a look of death from Kaiba, who was also unconsciously bearing his teeth and clenching his fists.

"Well, an albino is an animal or person that has no pigmentation whatsoever," he said slowly, stiffly. "It's genetic and can harbor a lot of defects. Skin sensitivity to sunlight and tendencies toward eye problems are common, especially with humans. _Unfortunately_, I don't have any examples to show you," he cautioned her.

For a moment there was silence. Kisara was seen by several people, who'd turned around to see her reaction, to be blushing redder than she had the entire day (which actually wasn't saying much because her complexion _was_ that pale, almost as if she did lack pigmentation), squinting her dark blue eyes in a continuous wince, and attempting to chew on all four fingernails of her right hand at once while her left hand was fisted under the table. Eventually she just squeezed her eyes shut from all the embarrassment.

"I can make her pay for this," Kisara heard Kaiba say under his breath to her. She opened her eyes and looked over at him. He'd toned down the murderous gaze he'd been giving the insulting girl, but he hadn't removed it entirely.

Kisara pulled her fingers from her mouth and laid her hand back on the table. "No. I don't want to make any more waves than I have to."

He shifted his eyes over to look at her. "She deserves to be punished."

The girl shook her pure white-haired head back and forth, and Seto didn't push the issue. The bell rang, and everyone heard Mr. Vee say to the rude friend of Meg's, "Ms. Anders, stay after class."

"See? You didn't need to do anything, anyway," Kisara pointed out mock-cheerfully. Seto wasn't convinced that a stern lecture would stop the girl, or any other of Meg's friends including Meg herself, from continuing to be a bother to Kisara. He wasn't a fool, and he knew how Meg's frivolous little mind worked, regrettably. He'd have to work something out with the cheerleader before anything really spite-filled happened to Kisara and made her leave. Seto didn't want her to go. He wanted her here, with him. And, _to hell_ if an imbecile of a cheerleader was going to stand in the way of what _he_ wanted.

They walked into the crowded halls, filled with the noises of end-of-the-day conversations and banging lockers, where people were still staring in awe at them and moving out of their way. Partway through the mass of students, Kaiba stopped, right in the middle of mass of people, and asked Kisara, "Do you need all of the things you have with you?"

He was referring to the books and such in her book bag, which, though made of a somewhat stretchy material, was still a well-used, frayed bag that looked ready to part at the seams from all that was packed into it.

"It would be nice to set some of this stuff aside until when I actually need it," she confessed, attempting to heft the bag onto her shoulder and failing. Seto grabbed a strap for her and she was able to get the mighty thing settled on her fragile frame. Seto nodded once before setting off down the hallways, her elbow held carefully in his clutches. He remembered her locker number and the combination from where it had been printed on her schedule. It was in the freshman hallway, since all the senior lockers were taken already. It would mean a longer trip for him, but he didn't mind.

They reached her locker finally, near Ms. Liddy's room, and Seto undid her lock for her.

"Thanks," she huffed, the weight of the backpack getting to her. The idea that maybe it might not be a good idea him knowing her combination didn't even cross her mind.

The backpack fell to the floor with a jarring thud when Kisara attempted to _gently_ set it down, and much of its contents spilled out. Kisara sighed and mumbled something about getting a more reliable backpack before bending down to gather it all up, as did Seto. Luckily, most of the students had already rushed from the school, so no one was coming dangerously close to stepping on her things or their hands. Seto looked at her things as he helped collect them. There was the English IV, Chemistry, and Psych textbooks, a workbook with its title in French, a few course syllabi, two separate drawing pads, a scattering of blue-inked pens as well as several perfectly sharpened pencils, and a beat-up copy of a book who's title he couldn't see. Then, there were more personal items, not that the book or sketchpads weren't; a hairbrush with a few strands of white still in it, a pliable, dark leather sunglasses case, a hazy blue-gray eyeliner pencil with the tip worn down to a nub, and a few wayward beads that looked like they'd come from a necklace that's chain had snapped at some point while in her bag were present. When Kisara picked the actual bag up, a few more things fell out: a frazzled paintbrush, a couple more beads, the broken chain they'd come off of, and a scrap of glittery silver fabric that'd been torn from who knows what.

She muttered what sounded like half-hearted Russian curses as she grabbed those things up as well. She took her textbooks and the French workbook from Seto and shoved them in the bottom of her locker, along with the syllabi, and the book. Then, she stood up, closed the locker door, locked it, and set her forehead against it.

"Is today over?" she asked him tiredly.

He gave a barely-there chuckle, and said, "Yes. You're done for now." He handed her hat, another article that had fallen out of her bag, back to her. She gave it and him a twisted, bitter-sweet kind of look before she took it.

"I don't suppose there's a point to wearing this anymore," she said wryly.

Seto just looked at her, not disapprovingly, though not compassionately. He still didn't know what to do with her and with the fact that it felt alright being with her.

Something shiny caught his attention from the corner of his eye. On the floor, under the overhang the lockers created, was a silver, oval disk that was catching the light from the windows on the other side of the hall. Seto reached down and picked it up. When he straightened and uncurled his fingers from around the artifact, he discovered that it had the head and torso of a figure carved on it. The disk itself was two inches long, one and a half inches wide, and dipped in toward the center where the figure was set.

Kisara gasped. "My pin."

If Kaiba remembered correctly, the figure was Osiris, the Egyptian god of the dead. All around the figure were vertical lines of hieroglyphics, and Osiris himself was raised into the third dimension, almost as if he was floating in front of the hieroglyphs. When he flipped it over in his palm, the pin system, an old-fashioned form not used since the turn of the century, was visible, as was a small, twisted loop that may have been where a chain had been strung through to make it into a necklace before it had become warped. Suddenly, the clattering beads and loose chain made sense if this is what had hung from the necklace.

"Thank you for seeing it," she said in a more heartfelt manner than Seto was used to encountering. "I didn't even notice it had fallen out." She actually looked frightened at the prospect of losing the really rather dull piece of jewelry.

"What's so important about it?" It was an instinctive question. To have something obviously significant to someone within his grasp immediately set off thoughts of leverage and extortion in his mind. But, this was the first time he felt even remotely bad about it.

"It's," she was blushing," it's my lucky pin. Pegasus bought it for me when I was ten, after he got back from Egypt. I'd become a bit obsessed with Egypt since he'd gone there, and I wanted something of it for myself. The pin's not actually from Egypt, but I saw it, fell in love with it, and had to have it. Whenever I feel nervous or upset, I rub my thumb over Osiris and it helps calm me down and make me feel better." There was a faint smear across the figure from her rubbing it now that Seto looked closer.

As far as Seto was concerned, luck was a useless set of mind that loser's like Wheeler put their faith into to win their battles for them. He'd forgive Kisara for believing in it as long as she didn't try to force it upon him. He'd also forgive the connection this pin signified between her and Pegasus, as well as between her and Egypt. He'd grown to despise things that had anything to do with Egypt with people like Yugi and others trying to force their delusions about his and some _spirit_ being powerful rulers back in the time of Ancient Egypt on him all the time. Hopefully, he hadn't just spent the day watching out for another Ancient Egypt fanatic who would try to convince him he really was a priest from the past.

Seto took a step closer to her, and pinned Osiris to her school uniform's lapel. It clashed horribly with the pink vest and bouncy blue bow of the uniform, but, for Kisara herself, it was perfect. She raised a hand and brushed the thumb of it across Osiris's face, bringing a slight smile to her face.

"Do you have a ride home?" Seto asked quietly.

"I'll just get a taxi," she said. "Or, have the hotel I'm staying at right now send someone over."

There was a _bang_, and they looked down the hall to see Wheeler's little sister, Serenity, picking up her own dropped backpack. She blushed, quickly trying to grab her things up, and failing. Kisara walked over to her, and helped her gather her things.

"Thank you," Serenity said, rather shocked that a friend of Seto Kaiba would help her out.

"You're welcome," Kisara said with a slight smile. They stood up and Serenity introduced herself, holding her hand out, the other arm wrapped around the stuff she'd dropped.

"I'm Serenity Wheeler."

Kisara shook hands with her. "Kitty Belikova." Kaiba watched closely and saw how Kisara's lips twisted slightly at her nickname.

"It's nice to meet you," Serenity said cheerfully, still holding her hand.

"But, we already met," Kisara answered. Serenity was shocked and embarrassed for not remembering when this would have happened, which Kisara could see. "During lunch? You were at the table behind us," Kisara elaborated as she extricated her hand from Serenity's.

"Oh! Oh… right. Um, I have to go," Serenity excused herself, even more embarrassed at letting her brother and his friends convince her to move with them to eavesdrop on Kaiba and the new girl in the first place.

Kisara watched her go, then, turned her back to her and walked back to where Kaiba had been watching.

"Did you mean to drive her away?" he asked her in expectant tones.

She shook her head. "I guess I'm not all that great at dealing with people."

"Hn. What hotel are you staying at?" he resumed their earlier conversation. They began walking in the opposite direction of Wheeler's sister on their way out of the school.

"It's not on the way to Kaiba Corp.," she argued, knowing, as everyone did, that Kaiba customarily went straight to Kaiba Corporation after school.

"I'll make it on the way to Kaiba Corp., Kisara," he told her, holding the door to the outside world open for her. She smiled at him as she walked past him into the fresh air.

"Since you're not going to let it go, I'm staying at the—"

"Kitty, dear!" came a shout from the parking lot. Both her and Kaiba's heads spun around at the familiar voice.

"How fabulous it is to see you again! Why didn't you tell me you were coming? I would have had a party!" exclaimed Pegasus as he stepped out of the passenger seat of the car he'd been waiting for her in: an ostentatious wine red Cadillac Eldorado Brougham from 1957, with gold replacing all the chrome features. An unknown driver remained in the front seat, while Croquet stepped out of the back seat to stand at attention behind his employer.

Kaiba watched, feeling oddly betrayed, as Kisara launched herself down the stairs leading up to the school, and into Pegasus's arms, the cry of "Uncle Peggy!" on her lips.

Pegasus let out an earnest, buoyant laugh. "So," he started pulling slightly away from her to look down at her, "after all this time of being cooped away in that wretchedly cold country of yours, you come here, and don't even tell me." He was mock-outraged for a second, before a grin stole across his face.

"It was somewhat spur-the-moment, Uncle Peggy," she defended, a wide grin on her face as well. Neither were aware of the attention they were getting from the crowd of students still in the parking lot. Serenity, Joey, and Tristan were among the number of staring teenagers.

"Oh, well, it doesn't matter, not now that you're here. At least you're still painting," he said, grabbing her green-stained left hand and waving it about in front of her.

"Of _course_!" she said laughingly.

"You _must_ come stay with me, Kitty!" he suddenly exclaimed. "I have a residence here in Domino that I use for business trips and such, seeing as Kaiba-boy _hates_ San Francisco, the whole of California, really, and _I_ am forced to come to _him_. I can make it my permanent residence, and we can have oh so much fun!" To Pegasus, all of this was already set in stone that she would come and live with him. But, Kisara was furiously shaking her head.

"No, Peggy. I'm an emancipated minor now, and I'm done with putting up with adults thinking that they're in control of me, or that I'm in debt to them," she revealed a tad vehemently.

"Come now, Kitty! You know I wouldn't treat you that way! I'm not your parents, after all! Just come and stay for a little while, and we'll see how you like it," Pegasus suggested, already scheming up ways to get her to stay. He did truly enjoy her company; she was one of the sweetest, kindest people he knew.

"Aren't you allergic to cats, Uncle Peggy?" An aghast look appeared on Pegasus's face.

"Oh, you didn't bring one of your wretched beasts with you, did you?"

"I'm afraid so, Peggy."

A calculating look came into Pegasus's eye. "So, you really are planning on staying here for a long time if you brought your fur ball all the way with you from Russia." Kisara nodded seriously. "Well, at least I'll be able to see you often, now, without having to take a plane ride or deal with your family." He winked at her, though it was hard to tell, seeing as he only had the one eye. "Come, dear," he said, laying an arm across her shoulders to direct her into the car. "I'll give you a ride to wherever you're staying now, and then we'll go have some fun and, later, dinner!"

Having him offer her a ride reminded Kisara of the person she'd left standing at the entrance to the school. She turned around to look for him, only to find that Seto had vanished. Pegasus noticed her confused look as she looked around the parking lot.

"By the way, Kitty, was that Seto Kaiba I saw you standing next to when you came out of the building?"

"Yes. Did you see where he went?" She had a somewhat worried look on her face at not being able to spot him, or even notice he'd gone in the first place.

"Eh, uh, hmm…" Pegasus muttered as he looked every which way. "Um… ah! Over there!" he finally shouted, pointing theatrically past the parking lot, toward the main road. Sitting next to the curb was a black Lincoln Town Car with highly tinted windows that Seto was just now reaching. He paused a moment with his hand on the handle to the back door, seeming torn as he hesitated. But, then he pulled the door open and got in without a backwards glance. The Town Car pulled away into traffic and started its trip to the Kaiba Corp. building.

"Well, there he went. More's the pity" Pegasus commented with a careless shrug. "Let's go, Kitty," he said, climbing into the backseat with its reverse doors, and waiting for her there.

Kitty watched the Town Car until it was out of sight, a sad look in her eyes, before she joined her godfather in the garish monstrosity of a car, and they too pulled out of the parking lot, and into the city traffic.

**Thanks so much for reading! Please give feedback since feedback makes for happier, more productive authors and quicker, better chapters and stories.**

***Said context will be explained in later chapters, as, hopefully, will other possibly confusing points that may have appeared in this and the first chapter; this chapter was too full as it was, and I needed something to give people a reason to keep reading. Still, feel free to ask questions through reviews, and I'll see if I can answer them without debunking my story. **


	3. Phone Calls

**I was looking up some facts on the characters of ****Yugioh!**** (height, age, birthdays, etc.), and I found out that Pegasus is considered to be 24… So, he would have had to have been, at most, 16 when he created Duel Monster, and let's not forget he was married before that... (I'm getting my info from , if you're interested.) In my fic, he's more like in his late thirties to early forties. Also age-wise for my fic, Yugi's 16 (a sophomore), Serenity's 14 (a freshman), Bakura (junior) and Kisara (senior) are 17, Mokuba's still 13 (eighth grade), and everyone else is eighteen and are seniors, unless otherwise specified. (Obviously, Grandpa Moto is not an eighteen-year-old high school senior.)**

"So, _who's_ Kitty?" asked Duke for what seemed like the hundredth time. Every time he asked he was always got a different answer about a singer, a model, a duelist… next, he was expecting to be told she was a lion tamer or something.

Bakura, his head in his hands over being asked _again,_ responded through gritted teeth, "We're about to find out."

He, Duke, Yugi, Joey, Serenity, Tristan, and Tea were in the downtown library, staked out in front of a public computer, trying to find out whatever they could on Kisara Belikova. They'd just arrived after separating when school had let out, and meeting up again just about ten minutes ago in front of the Game Shop. The library was empty mostly, it was still the Wednesday of Kisara's appearance in the classrooms of Domino High and very few people were at the library on a Wednesday afternoon, so they didn't feel too bad about taking up the entire row of computers when they just needed the one Bakura was logged onto.

"Okay, so what do we want to look up first," Serenity started diplomatically, clasping her hands in front of her. Yugi really liked Serenity, and he was glad that she'd moved back to Domino with her mom, who'd gotten a good-paying job offer from her old place of employment from before the divorce that split the Wheeler family. Serenity, like Yugi, was a peacemaker and was always trying to find ways that would have everyone getting along. It was nice to have someone backing him in that respect.

"How about if she has a b — a brother," suggested Tristan, catching himself from saying 'boyfriend' in Serenity's presence. He was still interested in her and hoped that, should he ever manage to get Duke out of the way, that he and Joey's sister might have something… of course, he'd have to get Joey out of the way too, somehow, for that to be possible. For now, Joey hated both Tristan and Duke for being attracted to his little sis, and Serenity was oblivious to either of their attentions.

"A brother," Bakura muttered as he typed something into the search engine he'd brought up. "We'll just see who her family is altogether, shall we?" he didn't really ask them.

The screen blinked and up popped several references to the Belikov Laptop Productions and to Kisara Belikova in general, though most were gossip columns from Russian.

"Blast," Bakura spat quietly. He scrolled down the page, looking for something remotely close to English.

"He's takin' it kind of hard, don't ya think," Joey muttered out the side of his mouth to Yugi. Yugi just shrugged, caught up in what was on the screen. He was actually a bit putout with his friends but was trying to hide it. He was disappointed that they had chosen to do a quick search on the Net for information on Kitty rather than actually approach the girl.

"Ah, here's something!" Bakura declared.

Tea leaned in for a closer look, eyes squinting as she peered over Bakura's shoulder. "Are you serious, Bakura? This site is known for not being entirely accurate."

"Well, maybe not, but it's accurate enough for our purposes," Bakura defended himself.

"This is all kinds of freaky and bogus," Duke commented. "I mean, are we stalking this girl now, or what?"

"We're not stalking her, Duke," Serenity put in. "We just want to know a little bit about who she is and the kind of background she's from. And, it's kind of hard to believe she's done all of those things when she's just our age."

"All of _what_ things?" Duke aske, tilting his head back and letting his shoulders slump in exasperation. He'd been the only one of them not to hear something about the new girl during the day from friends or just from overhearing random conversations in hallways and classes.

"Just chill a moment, man, and we'll see in a moment what exactly she has or hasn't done," Tristan told him. "Right, Bakura?"

"Yes, Tristan, thank you. Just wait a moment… Hmm, this page hasn't been updated for a few years… Uh huh, here's the family section," Bakura declared.

"So, what does it say?" Yugi asked, leaning forward in his seat to Bakura's right. Serenity leaned in from Bakura's left, and everyone else crowded in behind the three, looking over their shoulders.

"Um, no siblings… father's Ivan Belikov, the CEO of Belikov's Laptop Productions…" Bakura was mumbling quickly. "Mother's Viktoria Belikova, uh, used to be a fashion model in the seventies before she married and had Kisara, looks like she breeds cats now… Oh! Here's her relationship to Pegasus…"

"Well…?" Joey pressed.

"Just wait a moment," Bakura snapped. "Huh… So, first of all, it has him recorded as her godfather. Ah, here, on her mother's side, Pegasus's wife was her mom's cousin, and on her father's side, Pegasus and Mr. Belikov are, it seems, also somehow cousins… weird."

"No kiddin'. It's freaky how she's related to him through both parents," Joey said.

"Yeah, well, can we get on to something that's actually _interesting_?" Duke questioned sarcastically.

"Weren't you the one who used to worship Pegasus?" Tristan asked pointedly.

"Let's just move on, 'kay, guys? Bakura?" Yugi intervened.

"Yeah, 'kay," Bakura muttered, already scrolling on down the webpage. "Huh, well, all this page mentions is her being a start-up duelist. It mustn't have been updated after she won Russia's national championship."

"Told you it was a lousy website," Tea muttered before Duke cut in.

"Whoa, wait! She was a national champ?" Duke came close to breaking the library's noise rule. "Why didn't anyone mention that little detail?"

"Huh, I guess we all already knew it, Duke," Joey told him, not very sympathetically and a little bit smugly.

"Well, I didn't," Serenity said softly, immediately and completely shutting Joey up. Duke, standing behind Serenity's chair, smirked at her brother, receiving a glare and bared teeth in return. "But, it looks like there's still a lot of information on the webpage, and the entire world doesn't revolve around dueling. What else does it say, Bakura?"

"Not that much, really," Bakura said despondently, pulling back from the screen and slumping in his chair.

"Maybe we'll just have to get to know her…" Yugi suggested softly. Only Joey heard him and he pretended he didn't.

_They're like me, Yugi. They're made uneasy by her,_ Yami took his chance to try to get Yugi to understand his point of view.

After first period, when Yami had initially dug himself into what Yugi was calling 'his vein of suspicion', Yami had continued to voice his unfounded misgivings about the new girl, and Yugi had decided to ignore him until he dropped the mistrustful behavior. So far, that hadn't happened yet. And, his other friends' conduct was just encouraging Yami, in Yugi's opinion. He was beginning to wonder if a piece of the Millennium Puzzle was loose and affecting its inhabitant.

_Thanks, Yugi._ Sarcasm was dripping from the Pharaoh's voice.

_Well, I don't see what's so wrong with her! _Yugi defended himself. _We've barely had any contact with her, and already we're getting jumpy around her._

_Serenity had contact with her,_ the Pharaoh pointed out. _She said Kisara made her uncomfortable and feel like she was prey._

_That proves nothing,_ Yugi muttered in his mind.

_In any case, it always seems that when people show up in this town, they have an ulterior motive that's usually meant to cause harm to us, Yugi. Even when Bakura came here, he had the spirit of the Millennium Ring controlling him…_

Yugi just ignored this._ You know, the guys are probably just worried about having to deal with Kaiba if we get near Kitty. You saw how domineering he became during lunch when we got too close. And, they're kind of afraid of him, anyway. It may not have anything to do with Kitty herself, but her proximity to Kaiba. _He_ is always making people "feel like prey"._

"Oh, I have an idea, everyone!" Serenity exclaimed happily, cutting off the dialogue between Yami and Yugi. She began digging in her handbag. "I know someone who could help us learn what we want to know." She pulled out her cell phone and held it up for them to see.

"Who, Serenity?" Tea asked.

"Alright, sis!" Joey almost yelled. "Let's call the guy, and see if he can help us." Casually, Joey leaned against the back of Yugi's chair, satisfied that they were doing something and proud of his sister for being the one to get them rolling again. She smiled at him before she turned to the phone and started dialing. "By the way, who _are_ ya callin', sis?" Joey asked without much care.

"Kaiba's little brother."

Joey fell off the back of Yugi's chair with a loud _thunk!_, once again making the fact that the library was practically empty a huge benefit to the group.

"Joey, are you okay?" Serenity asked worriedly. He lay there, twitching, for a moment before he sat up and shouted, "Why do you have _his_ number?"

Serenity was shocked for a moment, and then her face shifted into a minute scowl. "What does it matter to you?" she asked, a sliver of pent-up anger coming through her voice. While it was definitely true that Serenity hated confrontations of any kind, that didn't mean she didn't realize there were times it was needed. One of those times was whenever her brother tried to govern her life, and he'd been trying very hard to do that lately.

"Wh-? I'm ya brother, that's why it matters! And, it especially matters when you're talkin' with _Kaiba's_ brother behind my back!" Joey's face was flushed red from the anger and frustration he was feeling at not being able to "protect" his little sister from a Kaiba, big or small.

"Joey, he's not just Kaiba's brother. Mokuba is sweet and kind and I like talking to him. He's a good listener, but he also knows when to talk. He's a good friend." Serenity was trying to calm things down by making Mokuba seem harmless. All she was doing, though, was causing a look of horror to cover Joey's, as well as Tristan's and Duke's, as they all realized that Serenity and Mokuba were only a year apart, and that he just might be considered good boyfriend material by Serenity. "Anyway, I thought you guys had said you'd agreed in first period to speak with Mokuba about Kitty."

"We said if we ran inta him we'd ask him. We weren't goin' ta actively seek him out!"

"What's the difference, Joey? This way we can get the information faster, and all we have to do is call him!" Serenity argued.

"So, when did you get his number?" Joey gritted out through his teeth after a pause, realizing that he wasn't going to win this battle of wills with his sister.

"Not long after Battle City. I ran into him one day and I wanted to thank him for getting that helicopter for you after you dueled Marik even though the radios were down." Serenity shuddered at the memory. "We ended up talking about other stuff, and when we eventually had to go, we exchanged numbers so that we could keep in contact."

Joey began sputtering. "Ya do realize," he was finally able to get out, "that once Kaiba finds out _his_ little brother is communicatin' with _my_ little sister he's gonna blow his top and probably take Mokuba's phone away and have it incinerated or somethin'?"

Serenity just glared for a moment. "Kaiba already knows that I text and stuff with Mokuba. _He_ is fine with it as long as Mokuba doesn't start talking to _you_."

Joey's mouth fell open, realizing that this meant that Serenity believed that the intolerant Kaiba was more open-minded than her brother was. "Well, fine," he said while picking himself off the floor. "If _Kaiba_ can stand it, so can I." Everyone just stared at him, an air of 'yeah, right' pervading the silence.

"Well, who asked ya?" Joey shouted at all of them.

"Dial," Tea told Serenity, tapping the other girl's phone. While Tea and Serenity were pretty good friends, they weren't BFF material. That was why Tea had been so adamant about getting Joey to be nice to Kisara had she chosen to sit with them, so that she _could_ have that kind of relationship with another girl.

Serenity nodded and began entering in Mokuba's phone number. When it began ringing she put it on speaker-phone and they all bent over it, staring at the lit screen displaying the number it was calling. The phone rang a few more times than was expected before Mokuba picked up, sounding somewhat confused and guarded.

"_Hello?"_

"Hi, Mokuba! It's Serenity Wheeler."

"_Oh, Serenity, hi!"_ he greeted, sounding rushed but cheerful. "_I didn't recognize your number. What do you need?"_

"Are we interrupting anything?" Serenity asked, concerned about being a bother.

"_Oh, no_," he responded, a little breathlessly. "_I had to stay late at school, so I'm running a little behind; I should have been at KC by now is all_." They heard a car door slam shut in the background. "_Okay, let's roll, Roland._"

"I'm sure your brother will understand, Mokuba," Serenity automatically reassured him.

"_He does; I've already called him. It's cool… What did you mean by 'we', Serenity?"_

"Hey, Mokuba," Yugi greeted.

"_Yugi? Hi. Am I on speakerphone?"_

"Yeah, is that okay," Yugi asked. Joey and Duke rolled their eyes, and Tristan raised an eyebrow at the phone.

"_It's fine, but could you tell me who's there with you and where you're at? Seto doesn't like speaking on speakerphone because you never know who's there or not_," he offered by way of explanation.

"Go ahead. S'not his fault his brother's a schizo," Joey muttered, making Tristan and Duke smirk.

"_I heard that, Joey,_" Mokuba said dryly.

"Joey!" Serenity reprimanded. "Sorry, Mokuba. It's my brother, Yugi, Tristan, Duke, Bakura, Tea, and myself. We're at the library a few blocks from Yugi's."

"'_Kay, thanks. So, what _do_ you need?_" Mokuba was curious now and he let a little bit of that curiosity seep into his voice and over the phone.

"Do you know Ki-, um, Kitty Belle?" Tristan asked for them.

"_Well, yeah, I know her. She and Seto dueled against each other in one of the earlier stages of competition for the World Championship a couple years ago. He won, of course, but for some reason, even if he hadn't,_" Mokuba's tone made it clear he doubted his brother would have lost, "_she still wouldn't have been allowed to continue in the play-offs… Seto was really ticked about it, too, when he found out she wouldn't have been allowed, I remember… He still fought for and won the title, but he seemed really beat up about what had gone on with Kitty. I remember thinking that that had been really weird because, back then, Seto…let's just say, he hadn't been at his nicest. _"

"Hm. Well, do ya know why Kitty's here in Domino?" Joey asked. He didn't want to hear about the varying moods of Mokuba's brother, whom he still considered to not be at his nicest.

"_Uh, no. She's here? Since when?_"

"Since this morning. She showed up at the high school, and your brother was showing her around for the rest of the day," Tristan answered.

"_Really? Whoa..._"

"So, do you think you can tell us anything about her, Mokuba," Bakura asked keenly.

"_That depends on who you're talking about._"

"What do you mean? We just want to know about Kitty Belle!" Duke exclaimed. He was tired of being the only one who didn't know anything about the new girl.

"_Okay, but 'Kitty Belle' is only one character in Kisara's repertoire._" There was a bit more than a hint of mocking laughter in Mokuba's voice. Yugi noticed that Mokuba came quite close to getting Kisara's name right.

"Yeah," Tea put in. "I remember in first period that girl also calling her, um, 'Kat Belvsky', I think?"

"_That, I'm pretty sure, would be Kisara's pseudonym for her modeling and most of her singing._"

"Are there others?" Bakura asked.

"_Yeah. You know Kitty Belle and Kat Belvsky._" Mokuba was speaking a bit slower now as he thought over what he knew. "_There are two others, at the moment: Kit Beltva, she does stuff like dancing and ice skating, and there's Kassi Beau, the musical and artsy part of her._"

"… Damn," Duke said. Everyone nodded in agreement.

"_Yeah, she's a real Renaissance woman, hidden by the snows of Russia and her own shyness,_" Mokuba jested. Mokuba may not show his 'Kaiba-ness' as much as his brother did, but it was still there, and, at the moment, it was at the forefront.

"Why does she need that many names?" Joey asked, baffled.

"_Well, think of it this way: Who's Kaiba?_" Mokuba questioned over the line.

"Uh, a jackass?" Joey suggested.

Serenity glared at him again before attempting an answer herself. "The CEO and owner of Kaiba Corporation?"

"A world-recognized duelist? A genius?" Bakura ventured. He didn't dislike Kaiba as much as the others did; he was aware there were reasons the others despised Kaiba. But, Bakura was still going to give credit where credit was due.

"_Okay, now who's Seto?_" was the next question.

"The not such a jerk part of Kaiba?" Duke suggested.

"Your brother?" Tea guessed.

_Our friend?_ Yugi thought to himself. He felt the Pharaoh agreeing.

"_Yeah. So, do you guys see how a name can impact the way you perceive a person? Even if two, or more, names belong to one person, it can seem like there's more than a single person, too. Kisara hides behind her stage names because she doesn't want the real her to be affiliated with what those personas do or are like._"

"I guess we see it," Yugi said.

"_Good. Seto taught me that._" Mokuba sounded proud of himself for being able to use something his brother had taught him.

"Thank you, Mokuba, for telling us all of this," Serenity told him.

"_You're welcome, Serenity_…"

"Mokuba? You still there?" Serenity asked him a little worriedly after a long pause was all that was heard from his end.

"_Huh? Yeah, yeah. It's just I'm here at Kaiba Corp. and Pegasus's car is out front. He's, uh, Kisara's godfather, did you know?_" He speech was sluggish and unfocused, like his thoughts were far away.

"That's one thing we _did_ know," Joey told him.

"_Oh_," was all they got for a response. Then, there was a whispered question not actually meant for them, "_What's he _doing_ here?_"

"We'll let you go now, Mokuba," Tea hurriedly said for them all.

"Yeah, I'll talk to you later, Mokuba," Serenity put in. Joey ground his teeth at that. "Bye!"

"_Yeah. Later, bye._" He hung up before anyone else could say goodbye.

"Looks like his brother's rubbing off on him," Duke commented. "He was never that rude before."

_You can appreciate why Mokuba might be worried, though,_ Yami offered. He didn't want to fight with Yugi anymore, but he also wasn't going to believe that there was nothing wrong with Kisara. The next best thing to either of them changing their minds was changing the subject.

_No kidding. I'm surprised he's not scarred for life after Pegasus kidnapped him,_ Yugi responded, seizing the chance to talk with the Pharaoh without the two of them fighting. _He probably just wanted to check and make sure Kaiba's okay._

_Hn… _

In downtown Domino, on the top floor of the Kaiba Corp. building, Kaiba and Pegasus were having a stand-off in Seto's office. Both were in identical poses on opposite sides of Kaiba's desk: torsos leaning forward, hands braced on the desk, and eyes, or eye, in Pegasus's case, glaring into the other's, waiting for the other to crack.

"Maybe you should just quit high school like you've always wanted to, and that'll keep you away from my Kitty," Pegasus growled, giving in first to the oppressive silence.

"Maybe you should mind your own business," Kaiba hissed back. He leaned further forward, and, even with several feet between them, Pegasus pulled back a little. But, he didn't stand-down.

When Seto had arrived at Kaiba Corp. he'd gone about things as usual. He'd walked through the lobby, taken the elevator up to the highest level besides the roof, changed into a suit in the large closet in his office, and gotten to work. Today had started off as being a 'paperwork' day, rather than a 'technical malfunctions' or 'designing conflict' or 'any of the multitudes of other things that could go wrong or needed attention' day. In other words, he'd been almost as bored as he usually was at school. And, unfortunately, he couldn't blame this on neurotic, insecure shareholders who didn't think a teenager could run a multi-billion dollar company without a high school education, after all, a high school education prepares you to do the work of a company's CEO _so much._

_Idiots._ Next they would want Kaiba to physically go to a four-year college because his two online diplomas weren't enough either. It was as if he hadn't been running Kaiba Corp. to the best of its abilities for four years now, since he was _fourteen_.

The paperwork had been in regards to the new Duel Disk system that Kaiba Corp. was ready to put into production. But, the decision had to be made whether or not it was the right time to do so. Seto had been debating the finer points of whether releasing the next generation of Duel Disks would be beneficial to his company, or if it was premature since the current model was still making relatively high revenues. He'd almost decided to go ahead with the new system, if only to incite all the problems that would plague him once production started and make it so that he wasn't confined to a desk-job, when his secretary had buzzed him.

"Mr. Kaiba?" She'd asked anxiously. Being Kaiba's secretary meant that brains came before beauty, and having a strong constitution trumped all… but, he wore them all down in the end, anyway, no matter how tough they were when they'd first taken on the harrowing job. The current one would need replacing soon based on the tremor that had begun working its way into her voice whenever she addressed her boss.

Pressing the button for the intercom, he'd demanded, "What is it?"

"Um, Maximillion Pegasus is here, and he wants to see you," she'd responded timidly. She was definitely going. Amazingly enough, none of his secretaries had ever quit on him; it was a combination of generous wages and the fact that Kaiba usually fired them around the time they got to the point of even considering leaving their position. It was starting to become a valued qualification to have been a secretary fired by Seto Kaiba rather than a detriment.

Seto had wavered for a moment, not wanting to see the lunatic, but interested despite himself. "Send him in," He'd finally said. As the secretary had led Pegasus down the long hall to Seto's office, Seto had swiftly stowed away all the plans and charts pertaining to his new Duel Disks in his desk. After a moment, he'd also gathered some seemingly harmless documents and hidden them in the desk as well, not about to tempt Pegasus's devious and _snoopy_ nature. For good measure, he turned the desk's key, locking all the drawers simultaneously, and tucked the key into his breast pocket. He didn't trust Pegasus as far as he could throw him, and the only thing Pegasus ever got to see of Kaiba Corporation's plans was what directly involved him as the creator and owner of Duel Monsters.

Seto had only had about three seconds between the time he finished hiding the documents and Pegasus being led through the door by the soon-to-be-replaced secretary.

"Kaiba-boy!" Pegasus had greeted, arms opened wide as he had strode through the double doors and into the blue and black office. "Ooh, you've redecorated."

"Why are you here, Pegasus?" Kaiba had asked, fingers steepled and slitted blue eyes watching the other man sarcastically marvel at the recently painted, chromed, and refurnished office.

"What, aren't good buddies allowed come see each other at their places of work and chat?" Pegasus stuck out like a sore, burgundy-clad thumb within the cool, dark atmosphere of the room.

"No." Seto crossed his arms in front of him and tried to get his shoulders to loosen up a little, trying to present a relaxed façade, while, in truth, he was tensely waiting for Pegasus to get to the reason for why they both knew he was here: Kisara.

"I must say I enjoy these new surroundings. They're no longer so… _bland_. Of course, I'm afraid I can't say the same thing about their occupant," Pegasus had chuckled. Seto dug his nails into his desk as he waited for his irritation to pass, but said nothing.

"My goddaughter's in town, did you know?" Pegasus had asked in light tones, waltzing up to the desk to play with the kinetic pendulum Mokuba had given Seto for a birthday present to match the office. There had been no sound but for the clacking of the metal balls together as they passed energy between them. "What fun," Pegasus had finally muttered before turning his gaze up to Kaiba.

"My goddaughter's gotten it into her head that she's been being _repressed_ by her parents and that she doesn't need them _controlling_ her life. Teenagers," Pegasus had jabbed with _tch_. "So, she twisted her parents' arms and forced them to let her be her own woman or something along those lines. What do you think of that? It sounds a little familiar, doesn't it?"

After a moment of quiet, Seto had commented, "I have a hard time seeing _Kisara_ twisting anyone's arm for any reason, and, as you've hinted, that's the sort of thing I specialize in, so I suppose I should know."

Pegasus had chortled unsmilingly. "Exactly. But, never mind. As you can imagine, her father doesn't really want her being here, not that he can do anything about it now. I don't think her mother really cares all that much." He'd waved his hand flippantly, not seeming to care what Viktoria Belikova thought.

"I'm wondering what any of this has to do with me. I have work to do, Pegasus." Seto had gotten tired of the circling of the subject that Pegasus had insisted take place.

Pegasus had lifted his arms in a careless shrug. "I'm just pointing out that since Kisara's real father can't be here himself to keep her safe and well-cared for, I, as her godfather, will be stepping in."

"And, I'm supposed to give a damn?" Kaiba had questioned, knowing that soon the Pegasus would burst and reveal his true intentions.

"No," Pegasus had smoothly offered. Then, he'd leaned over the desk in what others might find to be a menacing manner. "You're supposed to stay the _hell_ away from my Kitty," he'd snarled. The affable, foppish demeanor had disintegrated, leaving Pegasus's true angered and protective face to show through.

"You ruined her chances for the World Championship using _my_ game to do it, you caused her father's, my cousin's, company's stock to drop once people found out you had refused his deal without even considering it, and that combined with all that you've done to others I'm not about to let you land a direct blow on her, got it, Kaiba?" Pegasus's voice had risen as he'd delivered his piece o the point that the secretary must have heard it down the hall. "I don't want you so much as looking at her, at school, on the street, anywhere, anytime, at all!"

He hadn't shown it to Kisara, but when he'd noticed that she'd been standing and talking amiably with Kaiba, and later when she'd been worried about losing him in the parking lot, Pegasus had been filled with something near hatred toward Seto, worse than he'd ever experienced toward the young man before. He was very familiar with Seto's talent of being able to get people to trust him and then use them for his own purposes. He wasn't about to let that happen to his goddaughter, whom he saw as everyone else did: wonderfully sweet and gifted in numerous areas, but defenseless. So, he had dropped Kisara off at her hotel, and then told her that while she got ready to go out on the town with him, he had to make a quick trip and that it was a "surprise". He'd then instructed his driver to stop at the nearest jewelry store, where they dropped Croquet off to buy something for Kisara, and then they'd gone on to Kaiba Corp. Pegasus wasn't about to let his favorite person in the world get torn away from him by anyone, much less by _Kaiba_.

Kaiba had other ideas, though. But, ignoring those, he was actually _livid_ at the idea that he'd hurt or use Kisara. That's what prompted his heated retort that did in no way reassure or endear him to Pegasus.

He'd suddenly and viciously stood up from his chair, sending it smashing back into the windows behind him, slammed his hands down on the desk, and leaned forward with his own air of looming hostility enfolding him. "It's not Kisara that should be afraid of me, but you, Pegasus. I don't take kindly to people telling me what I can and can't do," he'd hissed. "And, if I want to be with Kisara, you can guess what I'm going to do."

"Stay away from her," Pegasus had cautioned in a dangerous tone.

"Try to make me, you harebrained fool" Seto had jeered.

And, that's what had led to their stand-off. Neither was going to concede or back off, and that's what made Mokuba's entrance so timely.

A half-minute after Pegasus had made the suggestion that Seto quit school, Mokuba burst in.

"Seto?"

It was a moment before either Kaiba or Pegasus reacted. Pegasus gave a full-body twitch before pulling back and standing up, fixing a false, twisted smile to his lips as he did so. Another moment passed before Seto straightened as well.

"Well, Kaiba-boy, I guess this is just another one of those times where we're not going to see eye to eye." Mokuba shuddered at the cruel chuckle Pegasus gave and took a few steps back, out of the pathway to the exit.

"Get the hell out," was Kaiba's only response as he pointed to the doors.

"With pleasure." Pegasus turned on his heel and swiftly stalked from the room.

"Mokuba," Kaiba acknowledged before turning to face the wall of windows behind him. They'd long since stopped quivering from the impact of the chair. He crossed his arms in front of him and glared down where he could see Pegasus's eyesore Cadillac at the entrance to the building.

"Seto… what was he doing here? Did it have something to do with Kisara?" Mokuba asked, rushing to his brother's side and looking up at him.

Seto looked down at his little brother. "How do you know about Kisara?"

"Wuh… uh, Serenity and Yugi and the others called me on my way here. They said Kisara's moved to Domino. They wanted to know if I knew anything about her."

"What did you tell them?" Mokuba flinched and Seto realized his tone of voice was more brutal than it needed to be. "Pegasus has me… incensed, Mokuba." The explanation was as close to an apology as Mokuba was going to get, and he knew it.

"I told them about the World Championship. And, I told them all the stage names she uses and what she uses them for."

"… How much did you tell them about the Championship?" Seto made sure to be more controlled with his tone.

"That even if she had beaten you it wouldn't have mattered," Mokuba replied.

Seto nodded and the two of them turned their attention to the view out the window for a while. They both watched intently as Pegasus strode heatedly to his car. His driver jumped out of the car and opened up the back door for him. Pegasus slid in and slammed the door himself, releasing his pent-up anger upon the car.

"Mokuba." Mokuba tore his gaze away from the sight of Pegasus's car driving from the parking lot to look up at his older brother.

"Don't talk to those guys about Kisara anymore." Mokuba's eyebrows shot into his bangs.

"Okay, Seto… mind telling me why not?"

"I don't want…" _I don't want to share her._

_Suddenly, what had happened around the time and during Battle City was happening again. He was seeing in his mind a room made of beige stone with a piece of dark cloth draped across a glassless window. Another cloth was hanging in front of the doorway. He knew that there was no one in this area of the palace, but he had still wanted to be sure that they wouldn't be seen._

'_They' would be himself, in the ancient Egyptian garb from the previous visions, and a girl, lying on the one bed in the room, covered by a rough blanket, and with pure white hair tinged blue by the shadows spilling over the side of the bed and onto the sandy floor._

"_Why did I bring her here?" he asked himself quietly, clenching the Millennium Rod in his hand._

_I don't want to share her, his thoughts answered him again. He sighed and looked again at the girl. She was completely out of it and light blue bruises were showing up on her cheeks and forehead from where the townspeople had thrown stones at her._

"_This is going to lead to so much trouble," he muttered to himself, relaxing his hold on the Rod enough to set it on the table beside the door._

_And, then the girl's eyes flashed open…_

Seto didn't come back to himself with a start as had happened the first times this had happened. He was then and he was now at the same time as the vision had gone on, so Mokuba noticed nothing irregular about the pause in his brother's speech.

"Just don't tell them, Mokuba. Or, anyone else."

"Alright. So, is it true that you were, like, escorting her around all day? That doesn't really seem like something you would do," Mokuba remarked as he walked away from the windows and sat down on the black leather couch over against the wall.

"It's true," Seto said. He seemed to be looking out across the city, but he was really looking into the eyes of his reflection, seeing the same color blue in his as were in the girl's in the vision… as were in Kisara's…

"She's probably going to have the press mobbing her once it gets out that she's here. What's she doing here?"

"Pegasus said that she wanted to get away from her parents." Seto's voice was a little distant, but not enough for Mokuba to notice.

"Oh. Didn't her parents get divorced a few years back?"

"Yes." Seto let a small shiver go through his body before he turned around and sat back down at his desk, after sliding his chair back to its proper place. Mokuba got up and started meandering around the room, too keyed up still from knowing before that his brother and Pegasus were alone together to stay in one place.

He knew that dealings with Pegasus were necessary for the company, and he was okay with them as long as there were other people in the room with Seto and Pegasus, but he couldn't be sure if Pegasus would try something should he and his brother be left on their own. Yugi had said that Pegasus had gotten his powers from his Millennium Eye and that the Eye was gone now, though gods know where it was, so he and his brother didn't have anything to fear from Pegasus. But, Mokuba wasn't so sure. He believed Yugi, a fact that he kept from his brother, but Pegasus still had this air about him that terrified Mokuba and made him want to stay far away from the psycho. The thing that reassured Mokuba the most was Seto's nonchalant and scornful attitude towards Pegasus; as long as Seto still viewed the guy as a walking joke, Mokuba didn't feel the need to run and hide in his brother's giant closet.

Mokuba smiled at the thought, and then whirled around and plopped himself down into one of the chairs in front of Seto's desk. He saw that Seto's face had a blank, faraway look on it.

"Seto?" Mokuba asked quietly, worriedly.

Seto closed his eyes for a moment. Then, he came back to himself and reached into his breast pocket for the key to his desk.

"What, Mokuba?" He turned the key in the master lock, and all the locks disengaged with a series of _snicks_.

"It's not your fault, you know?" Mokuba said quietly, misinterpreting the reason for his brother's out-of-it behavior. Seto's eyebrows furrowed as he wondered what Mokuba was talking about.

"I mean, you weren't the one during the World Championship who decided to bust the Russians for not playing by the rules," Mokuba elaborated.

_So, that's what he's referring to._

"I know that, Mokuba. I don't blame myself for Kisara's disqualification," he said as he brought out the new Duel Disk plans.

"Okay, sure," Mokuba answered, putting his head down on the desk and setting the kinetic pendulum swinging just a few inches in front of his face. He didn't believe that Seto wasn't beating himself up over the little fiasco at the Championship.

Seto had actually changed the way the World Championship was viewed. Before it had been that the country that had upheld the duelist was the one who got all the credit, rather than the duelist themselves. But, ever since Seto had won, it had changed so that the duelist was the one who got most of the attention, as it should have been all along. That was because Seto had basically abandoned his ties to his country after the USA vs. Russia duel, instead making sure it was known that _he_ was dueling, not America.

When he and Kisara had gone up against each other, they'd had no prior contact. It had started off well enough. Then, Seto had started to lose. The committee that had been formed to support Kaiba as America's champion had gone into a frenzied panic. They hadn't even given Kaiba a chance to make a comeback before calling some people and getting the administrators to declare that the duel was illegal. Why? Because, Russia didn't get its champ using the same guidelines as the other countries present had. They'd used their complicated system of life point calculations to choose her rather than the step-by-step, tournament-by-tournament method the other countries present had used, and that deviation meant that Kisara wasn't qualified to represent her country in this event.

Kaiba had been so disgusted that his appointed committee had stooped to such a cowardly deed, and, not to mention, was mad as fucking hell that they hadn't believed he'd be able to pull it off. He'd demanded that they be allowed to finish the duel. The committee had disapproved, but, when faced with the fact that America would be moving on to the next round anyway, they couldn't really come up with a reason not to. So, he and Kisara had completed the duel, with Seto making his move not too long after, and Kisara still trying her heart out to prove that she deserved to be there. The moment the duel had ended, Kaiba emerging victorious to the chagrin of his committee, he'd ripped said committee such a new one that they still weren't able to walk to this day. He'd then fired them, even though he technically hadn't been allowed to do that, and hired his own. There was _no way_ he was going to be affiliated with that sort of conduct when it came to dueling. Doing that was what had lead to the duelist being recognized as the winner instead of the country backing them.

Only a few hours after her disbarment from the Championship, Kisara and her committee had been on a plane back to Russia. Kitty Belle had retired from dueling soon after that. Many people blamed it on him, saying that she'd lost her penchant for dueling after their duel and that he was the one who'd set up the back-up plan to make sure that he'd go to the top no matter what. In Russia, it had been with an incredible amount of vexation that they'd considered him the true Champion.

But, life had gone on, and people had forgotten about Kitty Belle, and celebrated Kaiba as the world's best duelist. Kaiba had moved on as well, but, now that Kisara was in his town, he began to wonder if she had really meant it when she'd said she didn't hate him for ruining her chances at the Championship.

"No," Kaiba murmured.

"Huh? What'd you say, Seto?" Mokuba asked, looking up from the fascinating toy.

"Kisara wouldn't have let Pegasus come down here with the intent to warn me away from her if she hated me and wanted to get even for the past."

Mokuba smiled as if Kaiba had admitted to feeling guilty for ruining Kitty's chances. "So, that's why he was down here? You'd think he'd know better."

"You'd think," Seto concurred, spreading the plans across his desk.

"So, are we going to go through with it?" Mokuba asked in reference to the new Duel Disk.

"I don't think just yet. Soon, but now isn't quite the right time." Having had a break from the decision making, Seto admitted that releasing the newest generation of Duel Disks was hasty and ill-conceived at this point. A few more months at the very least would be about the right length of time, unless they got a really good angle that would push the product off the shelves and onto duelist's arms.

"'Kay… now what?" Mokuba smirked a little at the question. He knew what was next: more work. Boring for him, boring for Seto, but necessary for both.

"Now… we go test out those prototypes, to see if we _had_ decided to go ahead that there aren't any glaring glitches that would have impeded us." Kaiba stood up and began walking to his closet so that he could change out of his boring, if good looking, white suit and into something more worthy of a duel, even if it was just with his little brother. He disregarded the giant grin that had suddenly taken over said brother's face, knowing that after a few rounds, Mokuba would be scowling and yelling spite-filled words at him. Just because Mokuba was his brother, that didn't mean he was going to take it easy on him.

"Cool! Can I use _your_ deck for a change? I might actually win if we traded." Seto gave him a look over his shoulder as he shucked off the white jacket and smoothly drew off the blue tie. There was no way anyone else was getting their hands on his deck. "Okay, maybe I wouldn't win, but it might be interesting… or, not," Mokuba sighed as he realized he wasn't going to get what he wanted.

"One of the reasons you aren't doing as well as you could is that you keep switching your deck. Create a deck you can work with and stick with it," Seto said as he slid the closet door mostly closed to finish his dressing.

Kaiba had been inwardly pleased when Mokuba had shown an interest in getting serious about Duel Monsters. A lot of it was just Mokuba trying to find ways to spend more time with his brother, and, while Seto was disappointed in himself for forcing his brother to make himself like the game just to get a moment with him, he was glad that they did now have an excuse to use company time to have fun together. The only thing Mokuba really took issue with was that it couldn't just be for fun, that it had to have some intrinsic value, like it would test the new Duel Disks or it would teach him something so that he wouldn't be an embarrassment if he were to someday represent Kaiba Corp. in a duel.

But, oh well. He was just happy to be with Seto.

Seto peeled back the closet door, emerging in a black button-down shirt and black jeans; still respectable, but more casual and able to withstand the stresses of a duel.

"Let's go." He headed to the doors.

"Right." Mokuba pulled himself out of the door and hurried to catch up with his brother who was already out in the hallway. They walked down the hall and, while Mokuba called up the elevator, Seto addressed his secretary, who'd jumped almost as if in fear when the Kaiba brothers had come around the corner.

"Call down to Testing and inform them that Mokuba and I will be trying out the new prototypes, hold all calls or communications of any kind, tell Roland to be in my office at seven _sharp_ tomorrow morning, and have a list of all of our recent dealings with Industrial Illusions ready for me by the time we've finished." The secretary just stared at him for a moment and it wasn't until Kaiba raised one annoyed, questioning eyebrow that she came back to herself.

"Oh! Yes, yes, Mr. Kaiba. I-I'll get on all of that right away— I mean, right now. Immediately! I'll start immediately," she clamored. She reached for her phone, fumbling and dropping it a few times before she actually got it out of the cradle and to her ear. Kaiba turned away and mentally calculated the average time it took him to get a new, _good_ secretary. He couldn't believe he'd let this one get so far along before thinking of it. Gods knew how much longer how much longer he'd need to keep her around before a suitable replacement was found.

As the elevator opened for the brothers, they could hear the poor, stressed-out woman murmuring to the Testing staff of their imminent arrival. Once they were inside and the door had closed, Mokuba looked up at his brother and said, "Maybe you should put yourself in _their_ shoes. You might actually keep one for a whole year if you did that."

"I've kept some for that long," Kaiba replied, not taking his eyes from the reducing numbers being shown above the door.

"Just the one, and _barely_," Mokuba scoffed. Seto gave a small, mean smile in response.

They reached the main Testing floor, two levels below the ground floor lobby. A group of designers and technicians met them at the elevator, close to tripping over themselves in reverence. Kaiba turned to the department's head.

"Well?"

"We have everything set up in Block 2, sir. The prototypes are waiting for you there," the man answered in respectful, efficient tones. Not just anyone got to head a department at Kaiba Corp. You had to be smart, experienced, and, while you needed to be deferential towards the boss, ass-kissing and groveling did not fly when you were supposed to be the person in charge.

Kaiba nodded to the man before leading the way to Block 2.

"Ready, Mokuba?" he asked his little brother, a shadowy trace of excitement showing through his voice.

"Oh, yeah," Mokuba replied with a laugh. "Let's duel!"

Already half-way back to his goddaughter's hotel, Pegasus was still fuming from his confrontation with Kaiba. The problem was he knew he couldn't really stop Seto from doing what he wanted to, especially now that he'd made it clear that _he_ didn't want Kaiba doing it. Kaiba-boy was such a contrary little bastard. Pegasus supposed he wouldn't like Kaiba as much if he weren't, but that didn't mean he couldn't be quite the pain in the ass every now and then.

"Uncle Peggy" sighed. He couldn't decide if he had overreacted or hadn't reacted enough to the threat of Kaiba possibly gaining a place in Kitty's confidence. So far, there was no imminent danger from the lad, but, with her parents on the other side of the world, it was up to Pegasus to keep his little Kitty safe, wasn't it? … Unless, Kitty's parents were _here_. Upsetting his business partner any further could be disastrous for Pegasus, especially when that person had as short a temper as Kaiba-boy, and the person's precious little brother was against the whole arrangement in the first place, which Pegasus knew Mokuba was. So, getting one of Kitty's at-odds parents to come chaperone their little girl might not be a bad idea. Or, he could try to convince Kitty to go back to Russia.

Truthfully, Pegasus wished she'd never come to Domino. In her home country, Kitty was known and loved by everyone passing by her on the streets, while here, after the initial shock and thrill over her coming here wore off, she would just become a fleeting blip on the social scene of their society. She'd be forgotten by all except those who were true, diehard fans, or by those who wished to do her or her family harm. Seto Kaiba was a great candidate for doing harm, in Pegasus's mind.

Never-minding all of that, though, Pegasus needed to formulate a plan to get Kitty reunited with one of her parents. Her mother, Viktoria, was out, in Pegasus's mind. The ex-model was a drunk, who was miraculously able to keep that from the public. And, she'd never developed much of a caring relationship with her daughter, anyway, Pegasus would bet probably because she was jealous of her child's extraordinary natural beauty. And, she may call herself a cat breeder, but Pegasus saw his wife's cousin as nothing more than a glorified crazy cat-lady. So, that would be a no to contacting Viktoria, especially when Kitty herself had never been very fond of her mother. Pegasus doubted that Viktoria would leave her precious cats anyway.

The problem now was she'd never been very fond of her father, either. In fact, of the two, Kitty most likely _hated_ Ivan while she merely didn't care much for her mother. But, Pegasus both thought better of his own cousin and believed that he would do a better job of keeping Kitty out of harm's way, even if it meant isolating her. Pegasus would do it himself, but he didn't want the girl to hate him. And, if it did come to isolation, Pegasus would be sad that his communications with his goddaughter would become limited. But, it might be what was necessary to keep away from the darkness that pervaded the world. Pegasus knew all about that sort of thing, having been a main player in that darkness before, and he didn't want his Kitty to be exposed to it.

They pulled up to the curb in front of the jewelry store where they'd left Croquet, and Croquet slid into the back seat with his boss to show him the gift he'd picked out. He handed over the bag with the jewelry in it and waited for his employer to look over the purchase and ensure that it was worthy of his goddaughter. Pegasus pulled out a little box and opened it.

"Hmm. Very nice, Croquet." The body guard/personal assistant gave an inaudible sigh of relief at making the right choice. He'd chosen a pair of earrings that were handcrafted, twisted designs of silver, almost like Celtic knots, the size of thumbnails with the smallest chips and slivers of sapphire imbedded into them that were barely evident. He'd been unsure if it would be a welcome or bothersome cliché to go with white and blue. While Pegasus wasn't sure if Kitty would like them, he knew _he_ did because they matched the Osiris pin he'd gotten for Kisara seven years ago, and they reminded him of the card he had partly based off her.

_Another reason not to trust Kaiba-boy to be a gentleman around my Kitty_. Pegasus had known when he'd created only the four Blue Eyes White Dragons that they would become a fixation for those who viewed the game as a challenge to be conquered. He'd never, though, imagined the obsession that would overtake Kaiba and actually make him think destroying one of the Blue Eyes was for the best. With that knowledge, Pegasus felt he needed to be careful that Kaiba never know that, even if it hadn't coincidentally turned out that the legendary dragon was in point of fact blue and white, Pegasus would have painted it that way anyway in honor of his goddaughter.

To Pegasus, it was Kitty's card, and would always be her card no matter who actually held it. He never understood it himself why he hadn't given all four cards directly to her instead of putting them into circulation. But, the wrongs of the past could not be corrected now, especially with someone so jealously protective of his cards holding the Blue Eyes White Dragons. _Stupid Kaiba-boy_. But, while he couldn't prevent the wrongs of the past, maybe Pegasus could prevent wrongs of the future…

As they continued driving along to the hotel, Pegasus pulled out his cell phone and chose a number from the contacts list, not even bothering to account for the time difference. As he held it up to his ear and it rang, Pegasus hoped that his Kitty wouldn't blame him for doing this, especially when it was in her best interests.

The call was answered.

"Ah, Ivan! My, my, we haven't spoken in _so_ long, dear cousin! I bet you can guess why I'm calling!" Pegasus greeted in a sing-sing voice with a laugh added for effect. As usual with Pegasus, the joviality was all an act designed to get the best reaction from the people around him and cause them to underestimate him.

Ivan's response wasn't the most polite or convivial, involving plenty of Russian curses and railings against his daughter and at Pegasus for rubbing it in. Pegasus mouth tightened more each time his cousin laid another insult at his or Kitty's feet, but he kept reminding himself that this little tantrum was going to work to his advantage.

"Fine, fine, fine. _Whatever_ you say, Ivan," Pegasus finally cut his cousin off. "Sooo," Pegasus began, readying himself for the next triggering of the explosive Russian temper, "guess who's made friends with your little girl… Why, Kaiba-boy! Isn't that fantastic?"

There was a moment of complete silence from the other end of the line before the screeching of heated Russian words started up. Pegasus had to hold the phone away from his ear as the incomprehensible tirade went on, but he could still hear every syllable and the occasion splintering of something in the background. Pegasus was glad that his goddaughter had inherited her mother's passive aggressive way of dealing with conflict rather than her father's unstable flashes of rage. The outburst went on for so long that Pegasus and his goons had to sit in the Cadillac in the parking lot of Kisara's hotel as they waited for it to end. When it finally came to a stuttering halt, Pegasus spoke up again in a slick manner.

"I know, Ivan, _trust me_, I know," he said, remembering his own badly planned outburst in Kaiba's office. "That's why I'm calling. Tell me… especially after gleaning that little tidbit of information, what would you do to get your daughter back home?"

**Thank you for reading! I have to admit to not being happy with the first part of this chapter. I'd had it written in a way that I really liked… and, then my thumb drive decided to prove it hated me by eating it and refusing to spit it back out. I no longer use that thumb drive. So, I was unable to recover what I'd had written for that part of Ch. 3, and I wasn't able to recreate it as I wanted to. Sorry for what I view as low quality work. But, the computer gods don't completely hate me! I had the same thing happen with the new thumb drive, only this time I was able to recover it and know it wasn't the drive's fault. Yay! **

**Also, I'm aware that what I have going on in the ancient past deviates from what we're shown in the final season of ****Yugioh!****, but, oh well. My way's going to be better; there's actually going to be a reason for the tablet being made and for Kaiba hating Yami's (Atem's) guts! (At least, **_**I**_** never saw a real reason for all of that, did you?)**

**Review please!**


	4. Breakups Part 1

**Thanks for being patient, and sorry for the delay with this chapter (I'm **_**really, really, really**_** sorry); if you read my profile while I was gone, you'd know the initial reason why it was so late in coming was the trip and that my computer was hijacked. **

**In this chapter, and in later ones, I'm going to be saying that Kisara's the singer of one song or another. The songs and the person/group who really sang them will be listed at the end so that credit will be given where it's due. And, if I mention both a song and its real performer within the story, then it will not be listed.**

"Hey, guys!" Tea shouted as she ran to catch up with Yugi and Bakura on their way to school.

"Hey, Tea," Yugi said as she came up beside them.

"What's that you have there?" Bakura asked, pointing at a CD player in Tea's hand.

"An album by Kat Belvsky," she answered. "Her first, actually. I went shopping last night at the mall, and I noticed this music store that I haven't visited for a while, so…" She shrugged, tapping her thumb against the player.

"They had some of her stuff? She's obviously fairly well-known, but I still didn't recognize any of her false names. I'm surprised they carried her music," Yugi commented as they walked along.

"I know, I was, too," Tea said. "But they did. Actually, one of the clerks told me that they'd had a lot more selection, but a wave of people had come in before me and practically wipe the shelves clean of anything by Kat."

"Word must be spreading, then," Bakura said, adjusting his backpack on his shoulders. "Is she a good singer?"

"Well, I just bought the one, but I'd say she's pretty good. Many of the songs are light and open which is nice." She tugged the headphones out of the player and hit play. When Tea had bought the player, she'd decided to get one that had speakers built in so that she could listen without headphones on. It was hard trying to dance to the music when you were holding something in your hands.

The three of them listened for a while to the song playing as they continued their way to school.

"What's this one called?" Yugi asked after a couple of minutes.

"Uh," Tea handed the player to Bakura and took out a CD case from her bag. "This one's… "Why Can't I?" It's also the name of the CD."

"I guess it fits her personality… a bit," Bakura said uncertainly. He didn't feel like he was really listening to Kisara. "It's a good song."

"It is, but it seems kind of… not so much her." Yugi said, voicing all of their thoughts. It was kind of her, but lacked enough depth to really convince them her heart had been in it.

The next song came on.

"This still isn't something I can imagine her singing," Yugi said, bemused. He wondered if Mokuba had made a mistake when telling them all of Kitty's fake names. But that other girl, the fashionista, had also said that this was Kitty's singing personality.

"It's too… peppy," Bakura commented.

"Yeah, I feel the same way. It's titled "Chemical Reaction"," Tea put in. They were nearing the school now. "The next one has a bit more feeling in it, I think." She hit skip. "It's called "Fly". Actually most of the songs after this are more _her_… not that we actually know her," Tea admitted. Bakura and Yugi looked away, not wanting to fess up to how they were making presumptions about someone they hadn't even had a real conversation with.

"You're right," Yugi said as they walked up the stairs to the school. "This does represent her better."

"Do you think Ms. Liddy will let us listen to this in class?" Bakura wondered.

"No, I don't think so. It would be awkward with Kitty being there, and we have to listen to people's essays again today, anyway," Yugi pointed out.

"Oh, right."

"…It must be weird, being two different people, and yet still the same person," Tea commented, forgetting who she was talking to. Yugi and Bakura looked across her at one another. Yugi placed a hand on his puzzle and smiled down at it, then turned to smile at the old bearer of the Millennium Ring, who tried to smile back, but couldn't quite muster a genuine one. Yami and Yugi may have been meant to be together, but Bakura still had nightmares about how the Ring's spirit would use him and make him... he didn't want to think about it. He was glad to be rid of the Item after Battle City and was happy with the knowledge it was secure in Yugi's and the Pharaoh's hands.

They reached the doors and went inside just as Kaiba's chauffeured Town Car pulled up to the curb to let him out.

As he slid out of the back his left arm bumped against the door and he winced. One problem that they'd found with the new Duel Disks was the arm attachment clamping mechanism. When initially put on the arm, it was comfortable and sturdy. But as a duel went on, it went from comfortable, to somewhat pinching, to painfully tight as the pressure from the clamp continued to be exerted. Both Mokuba and Seto had found they had bruises encasing their forearms when they'd woken up this morning. Seto hadn't liked that new addition to his Duel Disks in the first place, not feeling that it was necessary, but he had seen the perks behind it, there being less of a chance of losing one's Disk during energetic bursts of activity, and allowed it to be put into the design. Now that he'd been proven right, he knew that they either had to go back to the old version's attachment, or find and fix the problem with the new one which would take a lot of time and focus.

He was glad. He'd wanted a problem like this to arise precisely for the reason that it would give him an excuse to ignore the desk part of his job. But at the moment, all he could focus on was the fact that his arm _really_ just hurt like hell.

He turned back to his chauffer and Roland with a fearsome glare on his face from the pain in his arm. "Meet me back here at—"

"Hey." Even without knowing by the sound of her voice, the look of amazement and admiration on Roland's face leaning towards him through the doorframe was enough to let Seto know Kisara was standing behind him. He turned and, sure enough, there was Kisara, sunlight glancing off her hair, and giant blue eyes having an unexpected eager and expectant look in them.

Seto raised an eyebrow at her expression. "Hey." He ignored how she'd just interrupted him and glanced around, spotting Pegasus's Cadillac seemingly trying to hide behind a stand of poplar trees planted as a divider between the school and the highway.

"Easy to spot, isn't it?" she said quietly to him, seeing where his gaze was directed. "He went to see you yesterday?"

"I had the feeling that your godfather didn't want you to know that," Seto said, mildly impressed that she would just guess something like that and not caring if he was ratting Pegasus out. It would serve the bastard right for yesterday.

"Even Uncle Peggy can't take over an hour to pick out a simple pair of earrings." She smiled at him hesitantly, a hint of mischief detectable in the corner of her mouth, making him want to smile, well, _smirk_, in return. And since that would tick Pegasus off, he did. But he knew something that would anger the watching godfather even more.

"These earrings?" he asked, gently reaching up and rubbing his thumb across her earlobe and the spiral earring for everyone and their crazy godfathers to see.

"Mm hmm," she murmured. They were standing rather close by now, and people were starting to notice. "I hope you're not too fond of that hand since Pegasus will be cleaving it off the next time you offer him a handshake," she blithely warned him as he took his hand away. Seto snorted (as if _he_ would ever offer that man a handshake). "Coming?" she questioned, turning to the school.

"Ah?" Seto heard behind him as he started away with Kisara. He looked behind him to see Roland swallowing compulsively. "Uh, when do you want to be picked up, sir?"

_Oh, right._ He'd been planning on ditching the second half of the day to get an early start on fixing the clamping problem, but that was before he remembered there was now something interesting at the school.

"Never mind, just make it the usual time."

"Yes, sir!"

Seto managed to turn his back to Roland before closing his eyes in exasperation. When he opened them, a glimpse of Kisara revealed her pressing her lips together, trying to refrain from smiling at his irritation.

Seto stepped to her side, and they walked up to the school together. They'd arrived before the pre-tardy bell rush, but there were still quite a few people hanging around besides the early birds, like the TSE crowd, those who needed to make up missed tests or quizzes, the extracurricular kids, and the before school detention goers. Erica Anders, the girl who'd made the 'albino' comment the day before in Chemistry, was one of the teens who'd just gotten out of morning detention. She'd made the mistake yesterday of back-talking to Mr. Vee after he'd had her stay after class, and had wound up with the single detention and the threat of more should she ever 'discriminate against a person because of the way they look' again. If Erica hadn't disliked Kitty before just because it had looked like she was moving in on Meg's old boyfriend, she most certainly hated her now.

Neither Seto nor Kisara noticed her as she stepped out of the classroom where she'd served her time and followed them both with a sour, nasty glare marring her normally appealing face. Meg, who'd arrived early for cheerleader practice and had also been following the two with a glare, did notice and walked over to her friend.

"Oh, Erica," she started, voice slick and dripping with sympathy, draping an arm around the other girl's shoulders. "I'm so sorry that you got detention. If I'd even thought that having you say that would get you in such trouble, I would _never_ have asked you to."

"Mm," Erica mumbled, not looking Meg in the eye, trying to hide the censure that she deep down felt toward the cheerleader. "Well, we all know that Mr. Vee's got a stick up his ass and is out to get us," she lamely offered up, mumbling.

"That's right," Meg encouraged, piloting Erica over to the rest of their gaggle of friends. "And we can't really get back at a teacher, but it doesn't seem right that no one pays…and, if you think about it, all of this is that new girl's fault if you go back far enough…" They'd reached the others by then, and they were nodding along with what Meg said, already knowing what was going through Meg's simple, if devious, mind.

Erica thought about it, and, with a helpful shove from the peer pressure being pushed onto her, decided Meg's nonsensical thought process was sound and could be trusted.

"You're right. This was all her fault. So, what do you have in mind to help me get even?"

Meg smiled cruelly before bending in to whisper in Erica's ear.

* * *

Seto and Kisara were just entering Ms. Liddy's room. For, a moment, Seto thought that there was something odd about the room, and then he noticed that not one of the dweeb patrol was in their customary seats. Usually, there was at least one of them there, taking up space, and the fact that all of their _things_ were there while they weren't was fairly suspicious and made him wonder why they'd abandoned them. He got his answer to where they had gone when he heard Kisara give a minute gasp. Looking up, he saw Moto, Wheeler, Taylor, Gardner, and Bakura in the back, clustered around two open seats: his and the one Kisara had sat in yesterday.

"Oh, great," Seto muttered, a grimacing scowl on his face. With the geek squad's bags hogging the front desks, there was nowhere else to sit, at least, nowhere for Kisara and Seto to sit together.

"Um…" Kisara didn't know what to say or suggest.

Seto didn't want Yugi's group to think they'd _beat him_ or something should he refuse to sit in his own seat. However, he _really_ didn't want to sit with them. But if it came down to a choice between his pride and his happiness…

He sighed angrily. "They left their things in the front," he pointed out. "When the bell rings, they'll leave, so we only have to put up with them for a short time. Can you live with that?" Not that it really mattered. He wasn't going to let them win.

"Yeah," she said quietly, hugging herself and showing her vulnerability once again. Seto was surprised; he'd almost forgotten how timid and unsociable the new girl was after she had just been the one to approach him. He didn't give her a chance to change her mind and started stalking forward to what he considered to be the pitiful group of nobodies in the back.

The gang had been talking amongst themselves about the songs Tea had been playing quietly for them, but when they noticed Kaiba and Kitty heading their way, they quickly fell silent and shut off and hid the CD player. There was no need to make the new girl uncomfortable… well, more uncomfortable than she already seemed.

"Hello," Tea said as they drew nearer. Kitty looked over at Kaiba, waiting for something from him, but when he said nothing in response, she took it upon herself to mutter a quick 'hi'.

"How are you today, Kaiba?" Bakura asked, not looking at him, but at Kisara.

"Fine," Seto growled, practically slamming his bag on the floor in his annoyance before taking his seat.

"That's good," Bakura murmured dreamily, taking notice of nothing but Kisara as she sat down herself. Normally, Kaiba didn't mind Bakura so much as he did the others, but the vacant adoration on his face was swiftly knocking him down several pegs on the scale of how much Kaiba liked him, and he hadn't been too high before. _Why does the guy like Kisara so much, anyway?_ Seto gritted his teeth and slumped ever-so-slightly in his desk.

"And you, Kisara? How are you?" Yugi asked, seeming eager to actually talk to her. _Oh, gods, don't tell me Bakura converted Yugi overnight._ Seto resisted the urge to tap his fingers on the desk. He didn't quite understand why, but having to unnecessarily consort with these people (whom he sort of considered the enemy) really got under his skin, not that he'd _ever_ let it show. Maybe it was that they tried so persistently to enclose him in their circle of buddies. Somehow that implied that they knew him well enough to want him as a friend. But they _didn't_ know him. And the hell if they ever would.

Or maybe it was just that today he was exceptionally irritable because of his arm. Who knows?

"I'm okay," she said warily, not getting what these people were playing at. And they obviously didn't seem to know Kisara well enough to know that she didn't want them around either.

Seto gave them all a sweeping glare, with the only ones of them noticing being Tea to Seto's left and Wheeler. Tea didn't really want a confrontation right now in front of Kisara, but, with Joey being Joey and Kaiba being a jackass, Wheeler was all for it.

"What's ya problem, Moneybags? Or, are ya just starin' at me cuz I'm so damn pretty?" he snarled, feeling like he'd finally gotten one-up on the snob.

"The only reason someone would be staring at you would be because they were wondering how the hell you escaped the pound and wound up in the school," Seto didn't miss a beat as he shot back. Yugi had to lean over and grasp Joey arm to keep him from blowing up in front of the new girl… again.

An awkward silence was on the verge of falling and Seto was thinking, _you can leave anytime now,_ when the fashionista came to the "conversation's" rescue.

"Hey, Kitty!" she virtually squealed as she bounced up to the new girl. It would seem the dream-crushing of yesterday had already been forgiven, or at least forgotten. "Could you sign this for me?" she asked sweetly. "My name's Paisley, by the way." She was holding out a CD with the words 'La Langua de Tech' printed in silver across a dark blue background and 'Kitty Belle' printed perpendicular to it, the first 't' in 'Kitty' also operating as the 't' in 'Tech'.

Paisley's smile was spread tightly across her blatantly whitened teeth, almost threateningly. Maybe she hadn't forgotten.

"Okay," Kisara murmured, flushing and not meeting Paisley's eyes as she accepted the CD. Taking a pen from behind her ear that had been hidden by her hair, she opened the case and pulled out the leaflet inside the front cover. "Do you want anything particular…?" she asked as she flipped open to the single silver colored page inside the leaflet, the only page the ink would show up on.

"Nope, _but_ I would like to ask you some questions?" Paisley was biting her smiling lower lip in excitement, but the fact that the smile didn't really reach her eyes set Seto on edge.

"Alright," Kisara finally answered, keeping her eyes on the exceptionally slow message she was writing.

"What's with, like, the name of the CD? Barely any of these songs are Techno." So this was how she was going to get back at Kisara, by degrading her work and calling her a liar?

"The title is to show that either the songs are in a different language, Techno, or both," was Kisara's quiet response. "And, in fact, the majority of the songs are Techno. Do you actually want an autograph, or do you just want to insult me?" She tapped her pen on the leaflet slowly.

"Most of the songs are in English," Paisley pointed out.

"I'm Russian, so it's different for me and the rest of Russia who got the CD first." Seto silently snorted.

"Yeah, I'd like the autograph," Paisley murmured with a glare. Kisara finished it in a snap. "People wouldn't be making comments about you if you'd be a little nicer, you know." She took the case and, with a flick of her perm, walked away.

"Uh, what comments?" Tea asked.

Kisara sighed, then, looked ahead only to have her gaze met by Joey's who was sitting in front of her. He smiled at her, but the grin began slowly twitching its way off his face as Kisara continued to just stare at him nonstop.

"Uh…You're not wearin' your pin," Joey desperately commented out-of-the-blue to Kisara, getting sort of freaked out and needing _something_ to distract her from her gazing. Seto's eyes narrowed. _How did Wheeler know about that?_

"My sista was da girl in da hall yesterday. Da one who dropped her bag and ya helped her with her stuff?" Joey explained, seeing Kisara's bewildered look. "She said it was really nice of ya."

"Oh, right. I remember her. Um, after yesterday I figured it would be safer not to carry it around with me," she explained, turning away to tug one of her sketchbooks out of her bag. "I really don't want to lose it. Look, would you mind if I drew you?"

Everyone stared at her in shock.

"Draw Joey?" Tristan repeated incredulously from his seat to the right of the guy.

"Really?" Joey asked, also in doubt as to whether he'd heard her right.

"Yes." She seemed almost at surprised that he wasn't taking her seriously. Joey brightly blushed in embarrassed pleasure.

Seto silently snarled in angry jealousy.

"Ya know, I didn't really mean dat pretty comment before."

Kisara blushed too, her self-conscious self catching up with her more ambitious artistic self. "Oh, no. I mean, yes, I get that you weren't being serious, but if you don't want me to, all you have to do is say. I get that you might be shy or might not be sure that I'm any good—"

Seto was ticked that the most Kisara seemed to have spoken all at once was in order to apologize to the mutt.

"Oh, no!" Joey interrupted her, putting both hands up in front of him and waving them back and forth, indicating for her to '_stop!_'. "No, ya gotta be pretty good if ya have a whole different name for ya artsy stuff, right? Yeah, it's okay if ya draw me. Just, yeah, sorry. No one's ever asked me dat before, is all," he told her, chuckling and rubbing the back of his head, still somewhat embarrassed.

She smiled a little and nodded. She pointed the tip of her pencil to the window. "If you could face into the light, that would be great."

"Uh, okay."

He slowly turned his body to face the windows, shoving his feet out into the aisle and draping his arm across the back of his seat. The moment Joey was turned away and situated, the scratching sound of pencil on paper began.

"What mediums do you work in?" Gardner questioned after a time.

"Charcoals, pencil sketches, as you can see. Water colors sometimes. But I can basically work with anything, though those are my best and favorites," she admitted. Seto knew the feeling, of being good at basically any and everything he put his hands to, but taking an interest in only a few of the things he tried.

"That art show the kid mentioned yesterday," Bakura started, watching as raptly as a child with a spinning top as Kisara moved the pencil rapidly across the page. "_Monochromatic_. Was that your show?"

"It was Kassi Beau's show," she clarified for him somewhat firmly, but still lightly, though how she managed to be both in one tone Seto wasn't sure.

Joey shifted his shoulders a slight degree. "Stop that," Kisara reprimanded him.

"What about Pegasus? He paints and stuff. Was he da one ta introduce ya ta this sorta stuff?" Joey asked, squirming a bit more, trying to subtly rotate his shoulders.

"I said stop that," she scolded a bit more sternly than before.

"I'm not allowed ta talk?" Joey yelped in outrage, battling the urge to turn around and gape at her unfairness. Seto would have liked Wheeler not being allowed to speak, but he doubted that was what Kisara meant.

"You're not allowed to shift. At all." Seto smirked at the sternness now in Kisara's tone. He could see the others becoming off-put.

"But I gotta itch!" Joey complained. "And it's right between my shoulder blades."

"It'll pass," Kisara said. Yugi and Tea both swore Kaiba's eyes actually twinkled at the callousness Kisara was showing to her model.

"Yes," Kisara finally answered once it looked like Joey might stop fidgeting. "Pegasus did introduce me to the art world in general, though he works mostly in oils. He did do justice to the cards of Duel Monsters with them, I'll admit." Kisara's strokes with the pencil were becoming sharper and shorter, adding detail to the swooping lines of Joey's completed silhouette.

"Who introduced you to the other areas in which you perform? Like the modeling?" Yugi asked, wanting to make the most of this chance to get to know more about Kitty in a way that didn't seem to him like underhanded snooping. Yami had retreated far into the Millennium Puzzle once he had gotten wind of the close encounter planned with the new girl. He still hadn't gotten over that feeling of wrongness from her. If anything, the feeling was getting worse though it still indefinable.

"My mom." With her focus on her sketch now, her responses began taking longer and became less detailed. "She introduced me to modeling… Uncle Peggy's wife, Cecelia she got me interested in singing. And, Uncle Peggy invented Duel Monsters, so… that's where that came from."

"Oh." They all watched now as Joey's profile continued to be rendered onto the page.

"What's it lookin' like?" Joey asked after a while, annoyed that he was the only one who couldn't see when _he_ was the one being drawn.

"It looks like you. What do you expect?" Tristan taunted.

Joey growled. "When I can move again, you're so in for a beatin'," he notified.

"Yeah, I'm really scared," Tristan continued to mock.

"You can move now. I'm done," Kitty interrupted. She ripped along the dotted line and held out the sketch. "It's not as detailed as it could be, but with the little time left, I figured I'd better finish it up." The bell rang just as she finished.

He took it and gaped in surprise. For such a short time, Kisara had managed to draw a lot more than he'd expected. "Wow, this is great! Thanks, Kitty!"

She smiled a little before crossing her arms and leaning back in her seat, away from him, like she didn't want any more to do with him.

"Is everyone ready to go?" Ms. Liddy asked as she walked through the door.

"We'll see you later, Kitty… Kaiba," Tea said, standing up to go take their seats. The rest followed her example and walked away.

Yugi and Bakura both turned back to offer a quick 'bye', and finally they were left alone.

"Why Wheeler?" Kisara looked over at Seto in confusion. "The guy you just drew, his name is Joey Wheeler. Why draw him?" Seto tried to hide his resentment, but it was hard.

"Hmm, I didn't know that," she muttered to herself. "I drew him because he, well," she sort of shrugged, "he looked nice with the sun coming in on him like that. I wish I would have had some colors, especially for his eyes. And he was right in front of me anyway. An easy target you could say." She looked over at him, a somewhat wicked look in her eye. "If you're jealous, don't worry about it," she added cryptically.

He frowned at her.

"Who were the rest of them? What are their names?"

"You don't recognize Yugi Moto?" Seto questioned dubiously. She may have retired from dueling, but not having any clue would just be ridiculous.

"Okay, I recognize _him_," she admitted before seeming to drift off into a daze. She came back to herself just as quickly. "I like his puzzle. But who are the rest?"

"Wheeler is who you drew, a second rate duelist and loser in general, the girl is Tea Gardner, a basic wannabe cheerleader, Ryou Bakura is the one who's acting like a lovesick fanboy around you, Tristan Taylor was the one antagonizing Wheeler, which is probably the only thing he does right, and then there's Yugi."

"You seem to know a lot about them all," she commented.

Seto grimaced, almost in pain. "I've had to spend more time than I'd like to admit with them in the recent past."

"So who's going to read first?" Ms. Liddy asked the class. There was a long pause.

The first student volunteered and stood up to begin today's essay reading. Seto settled in for a boring period.

* * *

The girl who'd been reading her essay finished, waited for the delayed applause from her fellow students, and went back to her desk. After a considerable pause of no one volunteering to go next, Ms. Liddy "suggested" that Wheeler go next. Too bad he didn't have his paper with him.

_Figures_, Seto thought as Joey sat with flaming red-tipped ears of embarrassment as everyone stared at him for forgetting his paper. Kaiba would bet his company that tomorrow Joey would have his paper and be the first to volunteer, ready and rearing to prove himself in front of the class.

"Mr. Kaiba? Perhaps you would read next?" Ms. Liddy queried, empowered by Joey's lack of preparedness to actually ask Kaiba to do something.

Seto silently and unnoticeably sighed to himself before leaning down to grab his essay from the side pocket of his bag and standing and walking to the front of the class. He looked over the class, taking in their expressions ranging from expectant, to bored, to flirtatious, to ticked-off. The ticked-off one was Joey, who was irritated that it had to be _Kaiba_ to show him up by having his essay with him. Seto smirked a little at the mutt, gaining a bared-teeth, practically foaming-at-the-mouth look in return. Seto finally let his eyes settle on Kisara, alone in the back row. He wondered if he looked as forlorn as she did when he was back there by himself. _Nah_.

He noticed that her sketchpad was out on the desk and had been turned to a fresh page. He could already see the faint outlines of a figure standing in his very position: hips tilted slightly forward, fist on hip, and one arm held in front to hold up the paper to be read. He smirked again, less cruelly and mockingly, and made sure to read slowly to give her time to draw.

When he finished the several pages long essay (Seto had never turned in a paper less than six pages in his life unless it was required), the class sat in stunned silence as the high-caliber paper sunk in. Yugi was the one to begin clapping. Seto didn't even look at him as he walked past him to return to his seat.

"Very nice, Mr. Kaiba," Ms. Liddy said. "Very, _very_ nice, indeed." Seto tuned her and the appreciative applause out, continuing moving back to his seat. He did take a moment to notice Wheeler slumping petulantly in his seat, arms crossed in front of him, eyes turned away from Kaiba, definitely _not_ clapping.

"That was really good," Kisara said after he took his seat. He raised an eyebrow at her even though she didn't see since she was still focusing on her sketching. He would have sworn she'd been too absorbed by her picture to hear a single word. She asked him, "Can I see it?"

He handed it over to her. She took a brief glance at it and scribbled something in the corner of the portrait. She then focused on it further and read the notes made by the teacher who'd graded it. They were all nothing but sterling praises for his work. She nodded her head and handed his paper back to him.

"Well," she said, quickly signed something else in the free corner of the page with a tad bit of a flourish. "Here you go." She gently ripped along the dotted line and handed him the sketch.

It was obviously unfinished. With her having such little time, Seto was surprised she was able to get such detail into it, maybe even more than with Wheeler's, but here it was more concentrated in certain areas. She'd focused mostly on the shadows he'd created; the creases in his uniform, the side of his face away from the windows, the darkness created by the placement of his limbs, his actual shadow on the floor, shading them with her pencil. It was quite basic, but every now and then one of those focused-upon details would pop out, like how she'd put more effort into his right eye than his left, how individual strands of hair would be emphasized, and how she'd shown every feature of his knuckles on the hand holding up his paper. In the one corner, with the flourish, she'd signed it as Kassi Beau, and in the other corner she'd put the title of the paper as the name of the sketch.

Seto nodded at her in acknowledgement of her work. _Enjoy_, she mouthed before turning to watch the current reader. Seto put the sketch between the pages of one of his notebooks before setting it aside.

The rest of the class passed fairly quickly, with Seto critiquing every grammatical and ideological mistake made within his classmates' papers, and Kisara staring off into space. When it was just a few more minutes before the bell would ring, Kisara told him quietly, "I need to stop by my locker to grab some things before English. Will you go with me?"

Seto nodded, not taking his eyes off the student currently reading his paper who kept stumbling over the same word, again and again and again. He finally just passed it up, moving on with his essay, ducking his head and hunching his shoulders.

**Thanks for reading. Part two is already up.**

**Songs mentioned:**

"**Why Can't I?" by Liz Phair**

"**Chemical Reaction" by Aly and AJ**

"**Fly" by Hilary Duff**


	5. Breakups Part 2

**Part two of chapter four of ****The One Friend of Seto Kaiba****. There's no segue whatsoever, so it might be a good idea to review the last bits of part one if you took a break in between.**

"Uh, Seto?" Kisara said quietly as a thought abruptly came to mind.

"Hmm?" he hummed as he continued to critically examine the poor speaker at the front of the class.

"How… Do you know why those guys would care about all the stuff that I do?" The look on her face was worried and a bit distressed.

Seto suddenly felt bad that it had been his little brother to rat out Kisara's areas of vocation. He wasn't mad at, nor did he really blame Mokuba for doing it. But seeing Kisara so unhappy about who she was outside of Kisara Belikova being investigated affected Seto and made him discontented as well.

"You must have realized that you wouldn't have been able to escape the spotlight for long, no matter where you moved," Seto steered away from having to admit Mokuba's part in her loss of obscurity.

"Yeah, I knew," she admitted, head drooping. "I'd just hoped… I'd have liked to have gotten the chance to be known as just 'Kisara Belikova', or at least '_Kitty_ Belikova', for a while before she was blocked out by all the others."

It was like a lead ball had settled in his stomach as he heard her secret wish revealed. Yet another reason why Kisara had left Russia for Domino.

"You chose the path of a celebrity…" he began, not looking at her.

No, she hadn't. Seto was able to see straight through to the truth, the truth being that, with her parents, her looks, her natural abilities and talents, she had had as little choice to be a celebrity as Seto had had when Gozaburo had forced him to learn all that his brain could to hold, and then some, as little choice to be Russia's sweetheart as Seto had to be a corporate tyrant. They'd been set by others onto the path and had had little choice but to follow it, no side roads being accessible.

Seto cringed before pulling himself up to sit straighter in his seat. _Stop identifying with her_, the voice that Seto called his voice of logic and reason said in his head. _Stop identifying with her and stop hurting with her_.

"Yeah, you're right," Kisara said, agreeing with absolutely no fight in her, as if she was used to being put in her place and didn't want confrontation. She leaned forward and braced her chin on her crossed arms on her desk. She stared straight ahead, not looking at him. The lead ball grew heavier and colder in Seto's belly. They didn't speak again.

The bell rang, and the class began its migration out the door. Instead of quickly making their way to the door as they had yesterday, Seto and Kisara lingered, both down and out of it, unsure of they could actually create a friendship with so many things at odds with them, and both swept up in the misery they'd felt in their pasts. They were the last ones out the door, and Yugi gave them both a really concerned look from his seat as they made their way into the hall. Neither of them noticed him.

Again, people stared and stepped out of the pair's way. Seto had called upon his mask of superiority to fend off the rumor-mongering that any despondency shown on his part would invoke, and Kisara kept her face turned down, not allowing anyone to see what feelings must have been apparent on her features. But, the air around the two let the onlookers see and feel for themselves that something was not right with them, which started up quick, murmured conversations once the couple had passed.

When they stopped at Kisara's locker, she shot him a look that he accidentally intercepted. They both turned away promptly. It took her a couple of tries, but Kisara finally got the lock undone and the locker itself open. As she bent down to gather what she needed from the bottom of the locker, Seto looked inside. She had been there previously that morning, decorating the innards, and Seto would have bet that she'd become so obsessed with the garnishing and personalizing that that was the reason she'd forgotten whatever it was they were stopping for. His eye was caught by something familiar on the top shelf of the locker.

She grabbed her things and stood up, not meeting his eyes, she nodded that she was finished. She closed the door and began walking away. He followed for a couple of steps, then, he stopped.

"Wait," he said. She turned her face to him, a confused look upon it. "You forgot something," he explained, going back and beginning opening her locker again.

"What?" The confusion grew, and she turned her body fully around to face him, taking the steps back to the locker. "No, I didn't, Seto. I have everything I need," she said, lifting the books she had in her arms up for him to see.

He got the door open and reached in for something on the upper shelf. He brought it out, not allowing her to see what it was. He turned to her, closing the locker as he did, and, like yesterday, he reached for the lapel of her uniform. When he pulled away again, the thing he saw on the upper shelf, the pin of Osiris, was pinned to her uniform. She hesitantly brought one hand up and brushed her thumb across the face of it.

Seto had remembered what she'd said about the pin both being lucky and a comfort to her, and he hoped maybe it would be the same for her now. Kisara looked down at the pin for a long time, and Seto began to doubt how his actions would be accepted. But, when she finally looked back up at him, it became obvious that she'd been fighting breaking into tears of gratitude. As it was, she still seemed a bit weepy, but she looked like she could contain it. She swallowed.

"But what if I—"

"Don't worry, Kisara. I won't let you lose it," he reassured her. She nodded, almost stubbornly, Seto thought. She met his eyes, tears gone, and smiled.

"Come on," he said, taking the lead. "We're going to be late if we stand here much longer." She hurried to walk beside him, and Seto noticed how easily and quickly they fell in step with each other, with no conscious thought to do so on Seto's part.

When they got to English, both of them were in fairly decent moods. They took their seats, and Seto saw Kisara rub her thumb across the surface of Osiris again. His lips flashed a small, quick grin before he looked away, turning his attention to the front of the class.

The numbers one through four were listed on the whiteboard and each was given a corresponding character from _The Scarlet Letter_.

Seto made a sound of disgust low in his throat when he saw this.

"We're Table 4," he gave as explanation to Kisara's naive, questioning look. She looked at the board and then back at him.

"You don't like Dimmesdale? Really?" she asked, wide-eyed, their tiff forgotten for now. Seto just hoped it was forgiven.

"Not in the least," he responded with a growl. "Why do you seem surprised?" he asked with a suspicious, narrowed gaze. Kisara opened her mouth to answer, but was cut short.

"Everyone! Seats!" Mrs. Hildan announced as she strode through the door, keeping her quiet dignity while still commanding an in-charge air. "We have a lot to do today. I've decided to push up our character analysis within your groups to right now, so those of you who have _not_ read this before need to spend the first part of the period reading _at least_ through chapter 3. I'll call a time, and that's when you'll discuss as a group how to fill out a worksheet I'll pass out for your table." She gently waved four worksheets before them. As she began passing them out, she said, "Table 1 gets Hester Prynne, Table 2 gets Pearl, Table 3 gets Roger Chillingworth, and Table 4 gets Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale. Just read and answer the questions for now. If we have the chance, we'll go over them with whatever time remains at the end of the day. Let's get to it." And everyone began.

Except Seto and Kisara, though they pulled out their books; they both already knew the story.

"When did you read this?" Seto asked, holding up the book, trying to keep the conversation on safe ground. The other two people in their table group looked up, amazed Kaiba had actually spoken in their humble midst.

She paused to think, lips parted and eyes drifting up to ceiling, before she answered him. "During the short time I was being homeschooled, so when I was fourteen or fifteen," she told him slowly. "They almost made me read it again when I went back to a real school in Moscow, but then I moved here before they started." She raised the book up. "And here it is again, stalking me," she finished with a hint of a grin on her face, as if she didn't know how well her jesting would be received.

"Why were you homeschooled?" he questioned, avoiding the joke altogether. Kisara didn't seem to mind.

"Around that time each of my personalities was hitting their peak, and everyone wanted a piece of them, all at the same time." Kisara shrugged, as if she were baffled by her popularity. Seto almost held his breath as they skated near the topic that had sent them into their gloom. "So my mother hired a tutor for me so that I could keep up with all my "appointments", as she called them, and still get an education." Kisara showed no sign of becoming depressed again, and if she wasn't, neither was Seto. "I was living with her at the time. She didn't like any of the characters of _The Scarlet Letter_."

"So you like Dimmesdale?" Seto asked incredulously, picking up their earlier conversation.

"Yeah," she confirmed. "I still can't believe you don't."

"He's a coward," Seto argued. "He didn't want to admit that he'd messed up, and he let his failure eat at him until it killed him. Pearl didn't even get a father until just before she lost him!" That part had always ticked Seto off the most: that Dimmesdale had been a deadbeat dad.

"But Pearl wouldn't even have been Pearl had she not been ostracized for not having a father. Even had she known who her father was and still not have been acknowledged by him, she would have lost her wildness and her honesty. Everything in the story happened for a reason," she stated.

_We are so not getting into that destiny crap,_ Seto thought. "No."

Kisara gaped at his refusal to see the story through a different point of view. "Hmph," she said, looking away. The same spark that had been in her yesterday at lunch when he'd become bullheaded was back again. It made her seem a bit like Pearl herself.

"Dimmesdale was cowardly and selfish for letting Hester take all the blame for all that time without fessing up and taking responsibility, and he was just a plain jackass for letting Pearl be without a father and for feeling sorry for himself all the way through," Seto stated definitively.

Kisara turned back to him, and Seto was scared at how much she seemed to be _seeing_. "Would you admit to royally screwing things up for both yourself and others? Would you never let someone else take the blame for something you did? Would you never feel sorry for yourself if you ever did do those things?"

Seto was pinned. He wanted to say that he would never do those things so that he could continue to revile Dimmesdale. But he _had_ done those things. He could still never bring himself to admit he'd messed up, he let Mokuba take the blame for ratting to Gozaburo when they were kids and he and the Big Five had been trying to take over the company, and he was still feeling sorry for himself about all the things that Gozaburo had put him through and what the man had reduced him to becoming.

"I like Dimmesdale," Kisara breathed, pretending to read the back of the book.

"Do you think of him as some amorous, heroic tortured-soul?" he asked conceitedly. Kisara tight-lipped smile and nodded good-humoredly.

"I bet you thought _Romeo and Juliet_ was romantic, too," Seto accusingly spat, almost snarling. The other two people in their group looked a second time, almost afraid.

"Yep," she responded, ruffling through the pages of her book.

"Death is always a turn on" Seto sarcastically agreed. Kisara chuckled. She opened the book and began reading for the heck of it, and after a moment Seto pulled out _Animal Farm_.

"Okay, it's about time that everyone get started in their groups on that sheet I passed out," Mrs. Hildan announced a half-hour later. Most of the class had been finished and talking quietly to each other for a while.

"So how are we going to fill this out?" one of the other people in their group asked.

"What kind of questions does it ask?" the second person asked.

"Ah, it's mostly opinion-based stuff, actually. What we think of Dimmesdale so far? …He doesn't seem that bad," the person tentatively offered.

"What do you mean? K… Kaiba's right. Dimmesdale's a jerk," the second argued, stuttering as he looked over at Seto, who hadn't even looked up from his book yet.

"No, he's not," Kisara said, face-palming herself and stifling mild, frustrated laughter. "He's suffering because he had principles and beliefs that he turned against because he fell for Hester, and if he took responsibility for Hester and Pearl, he'd have to turn against those principles and beliefs even more."

The other two fell silent, the one kind of smiling and nodding a little, the other sinking down in his seat and crossing his arms in front of him.

When neither of them contributed more, Kisara looked at Seto. "Well? What do we do now?"

He didn't look at her, instead turning his attention from the book to the teacher.

"Mrs. Hildan," he said aloud.

She looked up in surprise. Kaiba's voice was a rare thing to hear. "Yes, Mr. Kaiba?"

"Our table seems unable to agree upon the character of Dimmesdale." Seto shot Kisara a look as he said the man's name. "We will be requiring two worksheets."

* * *

Kisara was still having trouble not giggling as they made their way to their third periods.

"It was the obvious solution," Seto defended, not understanding what was so funny about his wanting his own separate worksheet to use to condemn and disparage Dimmesdale with.

"Maybe, but you need to learn to compromise more," she said, stepping into her Art class. "See you in Gym."

He turned away in the direction of his History AP class. "Compromise, puh," he scoffed. In his job, compromising meant weakness and was a skill he definitely wouldn't be needing.

Seto thought that he may have used up his benevolence quota for the day when he'd put the pin on Kisara's sweater.

History passed in a droning blip, and Seto went back to the Art room to find Kisara having a tentative conversation with a sophomore named Alec Pharney. A skinny, kind of short kid with chunky, black-rimmed glasses, sandy blonde hair, and who refused to button up his uniform over the white wife beater he constantly wore.

As Seto approached, Alec turned and scuttled away. Walking to the gym, Kisara told him how she and Alec had been paired for an art project and it had turned out that Alec was actually pretty serious about his art, which she seemed pleased about. Seto wasn't too pleased about it.

Gym class was different today. Instead of simple laps they did line sprints and everyone was sweaty and out of breath by the end of the day. Almost everyone in that class had their jackets and sweaters off during lunch to cool down. Kisara had her sweater draped across the bench beside her and her hair put up in a bun with a couple of pencils to welcome whatever cool air might grace the back of her neck.

Paisley and some others like her dramatic self kept glancing over at her from their table and then back at something they'd set in the middle of their lunch trays.

"_Ostavʹte menya v pokoe_," Kisara muttered, seeing the looks. "I don't like it when people stare at me," she said to Seto's inquiring look.

"Could be worse," was all he said in return.

_The dweebs aren't gawking and squawking like they were yesterday, at least. Well, not as much,_ Seto thought._ You can't hear them as clearly today. _

Ignoring them, he told Kisara, "I'll be back in a moment."

"Okay," she said, fanning herself with her French workbook.

Seto was just going to buy a bottle of water from the vending machines on the other side of the room, but that never came to be.

It had been completely unexpected when it happened. From across the cafeteria, Seto had looked up a split second befo—

"_Shreeee!" _Kisara let out a quick, high-pitched shriek as ice-cold, blue liquid was poured all over her. Seto had barely seen, with a look of flashing dismay and rage in his eyes, Erica Anders and a couple of wingmen coming up behind Kisara with the lidless Gatorade in hand, with not enough time to warn Kisara.

"'_Tchyo za ga`lima?_" Kisara yelped as she stood up and spun around, voice cracking and tears just beginning to well in her eyes. Her wet hair fell from its up-do and slapped her across the face and down over her shoulders.

"Russian? Really? Learn to speak like an American, bitch. Get some coloring while you're at it, too," Erica ridiculed, the two girls with her joining in with mocking laughter.

The entire room fell silent and stared as the new girl ran from the room, sodden and dripping blue Gatorade as she went.

* * *

"Oh, how could they?" Serenity said in horror and sympathy as Kisara ran by only a couple tables down from her and her friends.

"We should follow her, make sure she's okay," Joey suggested, liking the new girl a lot now after she'd drawn his portrait for him. And anyone who got picked on like that was good in Joey's book after his experience with Yugi.

"Yeah, let's go," Yugi said. They all got up and went after her.

Seto, coming out of a minute of wide-eyed shock, stalked over to the group surrounding Meg. They all were laughing their heads off.

"Meg," he choked out through his anger. She looked up with a falsely surprised look on her face. She'd seen him coming all the way from across the cafeteria, but had decided to play it cool and coy. "Might we talk?" he suggested through clenched teeth. Many of the people around them stopped laughing in discomfiture. They were scared at the barely contained fury Seto had seeping out of him.

"Sure, baby," she replied with an attempt at a sexy curl of her lips before following him, too focused on her overall goal to worry, or perhaps too stupid.

"What do you think, then, Meg?" he asked when they were outside the cafeteria, in the hallway, away from prying ears.

She shrugged. "She looks good in "Frost Glacier Freeze"," Meg cackled.

"Your favorite flavor?" Seto asked in a monotone.

"No, but it goes _so well_ with those bwig bwew eyes, doesn't it?" She gave another hostile laugh. Seto remembered the horrible, twisted smile she was now wearing from when he'd dumped her.

It was time to stop playing nice, or, at least, it was time to become a little more obvious with his aggression. He stepped right into her personal space, to the point that they were almost flush with one another, and put his face right in hers. "Leave her alone," he lowly warned. Meg finally looked frightened for a moment, but then she went all blasé again, treating it like a joke.

She gave a breathy, overly-loud laugh. "Come on, Seto," she said, running a hand up his chest. "Loosen up. It's just a new girl. Why are you taking such interest in her?"

"Why are you?" Seto rejoined.

"Just trying to keep you from making a mistake. And, no, I'm not going to leave her alone." She'd gone from flippant to jealous at the drop of a hat, just like Seto was about to go from vague intimidation to concrete threats.

"Meg, how is it that you and your friends are as idiotic and juvenile as they come, and yet you're all in at least one Honors or AP class?" Meg blanched. He stepped away as he let the peril sink in. Then he brought the threat home.

"If you and your minions don't lay off Kisara, I will expose you and the rest as being the greatest cheats in the history of this school. The only reason I haven't already," he started, "is that I felt your being my girlfriend, for the short time you were, entitled you to something." He started shaking his head. "Not anymore. Now, knock off the_ bullshit_ before I tell," he ended softly.

After a moment, Meg nodded mutely, and Seto began walking off just as she was able to gain a shadow of her snarkiness back. "It figures you'd go straight to the bullying, Seto." He just kept walking. "You know, with my knowing you so well, we'd probably still make a pretty good couple!" she called after him desperately.

He turned back at that. "You said you wanted to keep me from making a mistake. But while I'm loathe to admit it, I've already done that. And if you knew me at all, you'd know that I never make the same mistake twice."

That being said, Seto made his way back into the cafeteria and gathered up his and Kisara's things, almost all of which had been spattered with droplets of energy drink. He double-checked to make sure he had everything of theirs only to realize that Kisara's school jacket was missing, absolutely nowhere in sight.

Seto didn't bother looking for it further, knowing that it was long gone with Erica and her friends.

He first went to his locker and dropped everything inside, including Kisara's things, before he went looking for her. He figured that either she'd be in the girls' locker room which was all the way across the school, or she'd be in a bathroom, possibly near the cafeteria. Though, in order to get as far away from her antagonists as possible, she may have gone farther afield in search of sanctuary which, again, led him to think the girls' locker room.

He began walking the halls at a brisk but randomly lead gait, not certain of where to start. But when he saw the male members of the geek squad gathered outside the door to a girls' bathroom, he was pretty confidant he'd found her.

"Is she in there?" he deigned to ask them, striding forward with purpose now.

The whole bunch jumped at the sound of his voice and the sight of his approach.

"Yeah, she is," Yugi answered for them. "Tea and Serenity are in there with her."

Seto nodded his understanding of the situation before continuing forward and pushing through the door to the girls' room.

In the pause that followed, only the flapping of the bathroom door sounded amidst the shocked faces of the group of boys outside the bathroom.

"Did Kaiba just walk inta da girls' room?" Joey asked aloud, a blank, dazed expression on his face.

"Yeah," Duke confirmed with dry mouth. He swallowed. "Yeah, he did."

"…Bloody hell," Bakura stated. Everyone nodded.

On the other side of the door, Kaiba was faced with both Tea and Serenity gasping in surprise and staring at him in shock, mouths open wide.

"Kaiba!" Tea shouted, coming back to herself after the initial shock. "What are you doing in here? This is the _girls' room!_"

"Kaiba…" Serenity barely murmured. Kisara just looked at him, no expression on her face or in her eyes, but a definite tenseness in her energy drink-soaked frame.

Kaiba stood just inside the door for a moment, his eyes assessing his surroundings and the girls in front of him, before he responded.

"I know this is the girls' room, Gardner. That's probably the only thing that kept the whole of the sympathy-toting dweeb patrol from invading and descending upon Kisara like vultures on a carcass."

Tea gasped and turned to Kisara to see what she wanted them to do.

"It's okay, guys." No emotion came across through her voice. "I can handle this. Thanks for your help." She didn't sound like she meant any of it.

Both Tea and Serenity started to protest at being dismissed when that would leave her alone in here _with a boy_, but Kisara was beginning to give them weird vibes again, and she'd already looked away, giving all her attention to the mirror and none to them.

"Alright," Tea said carefully, backing away before actually turning around on her way out the door. Serenity followed her. Before they got to the door, though, Kisara stopped them.

"Hey, you guys?" she asked, looking down and picking at her blue-stained white blouse.

"What do you need, Kitty?" Serenity asked gently.

"Could you go back to the cafeteria and look for my sweater? I might be able to get away with wearing just that, and—"

"Don't bother," Seto interrupted. Kisara looked at him. "I already looked for it. One of Meg's girls must have taken it after Erica got you."

"Oh. Never mind, then," she said, turning her eyes back to her blouse.

"You could use mine, if you like," Serenity offered, already beginning to take it off.

"No, thank you," Kisara quietly said.

"But—"

"Really, I don't need it." Kisara suddenly looked really tired.

"Oh." Serenity and Tea stood there for an awkward minute before slipping out the door without another word from either of them.

Seto waited for the door to stop swinging and go still on its hinges before walking over to Kisara. He caught her gaze in the mirror and they looked at each other until Seto saw in her eyes what was wrong.

He'd taken so long talking with Meg that Kisara felt like he'd abandoned her, or maybe that he'd even been in on it since he'd walked away just before the humiliation took place. After joining her and hearing her ask herself why this had happened, Tea and Serenity had told her how Seto and Meg had been an item before, and, since Meg and Erica were friends, that maybe it was due to Meg's jealousy. But, Kisara had begun to think things like maybe he'd done his ex a favor, or that possibly Meg was no longer his ex. Perhaps it _had_ merely been envy on Meg's part, but Kisara couldn't let go of the idea of being betrayed. Especially when Tea and Serenity had spoken about Kaiba as if they didn't think he was a good person.

Seto's eyes widened in understanding before they narrowed into slits. _How dare she. _"I took so long getting here because I was telling Meg to knock it off, Kisara, and because I needed to grab the things _you_ left behind."

If she was going to turn out to be the kind of girl who was in need of constant handholding or was always jumping to the worst conclusions about his character, then to hell with her. It wasn't his job to babysit the new kid, and he didn't need her friendship anyway.

'_Friendship'? Is that what this is?_ a voice asked in his head. It seemed confused as to what the word could mean.

"Whatever, Kitty," he said He walked away from her. Passing through the bathroom door, he saw that Yugi and his friends had stuck around, not that it really mattered.

"Hey, Kaiba? Are you okay?" Yugi asked, concerned. Usually Kaiba had at least a look of superiority or boredom on his face, so the blank look on there now was worrisome. Seto didn't answer, just kept on walking to his locker.

"Kaiba?" Yugi called again, but he was already briskly around the corner.

He flipped out his cell phone and speed-dialed Roland. The line was busy and Seto cursed. Making it to his locker, he grabbed his things as well as what he'd grabbed of Kisara's from the cafeteria. He tried calling Roland again as he marched to her locker.

"Hello, sir?"

"What took you so long, Roland?" he snapped.

"I'm sorry, sir. Mokuba needed me to grab an assignment he forgot, so when I arrived at the school I needed to call him to find where he was waiting for me," Roland told him nervously. Seto wondered if he'd have to get a new personal assistant as well as a secretary if Roland was going to start getting jumpy, well, jumpier. "Uh… Mokuba would like to talk to you, sir."

"Put him on." Seto reached Kisara's locker and began spinning her combination into the lock.

"Hey, Seto! What's going on?" Mokuba seemed delighted to get a chance to talk to his brother in the middle of the school day.

"Since when have you started forgetting your schoolwork at the house?" Seto counter-questioned him, getting the locker open.

"It's just the one time… Seto, are you okay?" he asked, hearing how strained his voice was.

"I'll be fine," he answered, not wanting to get into details. He shoved all of Kisara's things into her locker, then the memory of when he'd been here earlier that day made him swear viciously.

"Seto? What's going on?"Mokuba wondered fretfully. Seto cussed all the time when something got to him, which was more often than he'd admit, but for something at school to get under his skin other than basic annoyance was rare.

Seto sighed, anger deflating. "Nothing. Tell Roland to send the Town Car for me and to meet me at Kaiba Corp. once he does."

"Okay, I'll tell him, but you're going to tell me what's really happening when I get out of school," Mokuba warned him.

"_Maybe_ I'll tell you. Just get Roland over here, and I'll see you later." He was done with drama for the day.

"'Kay, later, Seto." Mokuba hung up.

Seto stared into the locker as he put his phone away. _Damn you, Meg. You too, Kisara._

Coming to a snap decision he slipped off his uniform jacket and hung it with Kisara's other things. With her sweater missing and the Gatorade making her blouse almost see-through, she'd need it.

Without another glance or another trace of guilt, he closed her locker and went to wait outside to be taken away, skipping the second half of the day like he'd planned all along.

**Thanks for reading! I can't believe that, after all this time I've spent with writing this fic (4 months), I'm only just now ending their **_**second**_** day. I need to get things rolling. Maybe in the next couple of chapters things will finally start heading somewhere.**

**JUST A POINT I'D LIKE TO MAKE: Kisara is **_**supposed**_** to be perfect. I said that in the summary, and that's the way she's going to be portrayed for now. I do realize and respect that someone being perfect is an off-putting idea and that everyone has their own opinion about how a character should be depicted in these fanfics, but please don't say that I've "killed her" in a review or something else along those lines; you were warned that she'd be "too-good-to-be-true" and there are reasons for her to be this way. **

**Also, she's Russian because I was somewhat inspired by a Russian band that I was listening to when I first started this, and because I needed her to be from another country so that she wouldn't be **_**too**_** well-known by the gang or anyone else and so that she could have faced against Seto in the World Championship. Most of the things I do in this fic that may seem random or off-the-wall aren't random at all and have an admittedly, sometimes convoluted logic behind them. I just want people to know that so you don't think that I've just done things for the hell of it rather than actually put some time and thought behind it.**


	6. Alone Together Part 1

**(The original author's note that I had here I removed due to its excessive length and the fact that, despite all its words, it really had nothing to say.)**

A ways away from Domino's city center, in a more relaxed, yet still rather posh area of town, was the pet-friendly hotel that Kisara was staying at.

"I'm sorry, Uncle Peggy," Kisara said, close to tears, but doing her best to hide it. She was sitting on the bed in her red, gold, and cream hotel room, still in her school uniform, sans the sweater, her backpack and shoes discarded in the middle of the room, with curtains drawn back to show the glittering lights of Domino City. Her cat Milaya, from her mother's "Kalinka" breeding line of Siberians, was snuggled up against her leg, sensing her owner's need for comfort, black nose hidden by white paws…. and pale green eyes glaring over her paws at her owner's godfather.

"Oh, Kitty. How did you lose it?" Pegasus asked, sympathy dripping off his voice. His eye was darting from his goddaughter to her cat, wondering how long he could stay before his allergies acted up, completely oblivious to the fact that Siberians were the closest to hypoallergenic as cats could get. He was seated far from the bed in a stuffed chair near the windows, so as to minimize the (nonexistent) damage to be done by the cat.

"I-I think it was at school, during lunch today. My jacket went missing, and it was pinned to it." She wouldn't meet her godfather's eye.

"Did someone steal it?" It was barely worth a plugged nickel, and it wasn't all that elaborate (frankly, Pegasus couldn't see why Kisara got such a kick out of it), but he supposed he could see some felonious high school student mistaking it for something of worth. He didn't really care; he had other reasons for being there.

"Uh, no. I'm pretty sure it was just supposed to be the sweater." She sighed. "No one really even knew about the pin, anyway." Now that she'd brought it up, she just wanted to let it go. She hadn't even meant to talk about it, but when her godfather came over to the hotel, she couldn't stop herself from opening up to the only friendly and familiar face that she'd really met in this country. "The pin was probably just taken along with it by accident."

_Except, Seto had known about the pin._ And he'd been the one to encourage her to wear it that day when she hadn't wanted to. Would he be the type to plan out something like this just to embarrass her? She knew if she asked her godfather what his answer would be.

Gods, this was just like back home with Sara.

Sara had been a friend for a time back home in Russia. When they'd met, Kisara had been amazed by Sara's brashness, her no-nonsense bitchiness, her ability to rebel. Too bad that had been exactly what had eventually split them up.

That and the fact that Sara had been not just a bitch, but also a talentless, useless, piggybacking, immoral, _conniving, thieving—_

Milaya let out a yowling wail, breaking off the snarling, growling train of thought swimming and swirling through Kisara's head. Kisara looked down to see that the free hand that she'd had resting in Milaya's long silky fur had curled into a claw that, while it wasn't harming the cat, looked like the fearsome talons of a bird of prey, having great potential for harm.

The Siberian cat was glaring up at her owner in consternation, seeming to say '_bad Kitty'._ Kisara removed her claw-like hand from the cat and tried to relax it, resting it on her thigh.

"Kitty, what's the matter with the cat?" Pegasus asked, being unable to quite clearly see from his position across the room.

"Ah, nothing, Uncle Peggy," Kisara answered. "Milaya can get a bit uppity now and then is all."

"Hmm," was Pegasus's response. Looking at the coffee table beside him, Pegasus saw several brochures for apartments, condos, and various other forms of housing piled there.

Frowning slightly, Pegasus carefully began, "Maybe this is a sign that you should go home, Kitty."

"No, Pegasus." Kisara was deadly firm and serious. Milaya added in with a low, rumbling, "_Mrrreeooww._"

"But perhaps—"

"No. I'm not going back, Uncle Peggy." Kisara glared at the floor in front of her.

"So you're saying you're fine and would rather be here, with people stealing your things and pouring energy drinks over you, than go back home?" Pegasus shot back, getting fed up with her obstinacy. She needed to go _home _before something truly bad happened.

For a moment that Pegasus didn't catch Kisara's eyes alighted on a blue school jacket, _Seto's jacket,_ the only thing she'd managed to hang up properly on the room's coat rack, draped innocently in the corner of the room, so far unseen by her Uncle Peggy.

_Is he really to be blamed? Does it really matter? Even if he is, do I want to go home?_

"Yes. I'd rather stay here," Kisara finally answered, running her hand through Milaya's fur, getting an encouraging purr in response. She may not have been as decisive in saying it as before, but she as just as serious.

Pegasus glared vehemently at her for a moment, ready to start in on her again, when she continued, "It's no worse than what's gone on back home. If anything, it's a lot easier to live with." She wasn't being self-pitying. In fact, she'd removed all emotion from her voice, making what she was saying only fact.

Pegasus stared a moment, then, (seemingly) gave in. "Alright, Kitty, just know that if you do decide to go home, you'll be welcomed back there."

Kisara snorted. "Yeah, I'm sure."

Her godfather sighed before brightening falsely. "Okay, okay. How about we go out to dinner?"

Kisara smiled. "No, I'm not hungry, but thank you. I'm just going to stay in."

"Don't forget to eat." Pegasus stood to leave. He walked over to the bed and kissed Kisara on the top of her head, Milaya carefully keeping watch on him the entire time.

"I'm going to be taking a business trip tomorrow, so I won't be seeing my favorite cousin for a several days it would seem," he announced.

"We'll see each other soon enough, Peggy," Kisara smiled. She gave him quick, tight hug from the bed, before standing up to see him to the door.

She made sure to get there before him to open the door and hide the coat rack behind it. "Call me when you get back."

"I will, dear." He paused in the doorway before turning back to her.

"Kitty, I'm serious about your going home."

"Don't start that again, Peggy," she groaned, really just wanting to drop the subject. Each time he brought it up, it made her think a little more that maybe leaving here would be for the best.

"Still, think about. Don't make a decision just to save face, dear, it never works out."

She didn't respond. She wouldn't even look at him.

"All right, I'll let it go… for now. But when I get back, I want to hear that you've been _really_ thinking about this. Understand?"

"You're not my father, Peggy," she retorted.

"No, but I am your godfather. Think about it, Kitty. I'll see you in a little over a week."

"Bye, Peggy," she mumbled.

"Goodbye, sweetie." He was all sugary and caring again. He left her standing in the doorway as he walked to the elevator down the hall.

Once he heard the door to her room close and the doors to the elevator closed, Pegasus's cheerful expression melted into one of determination and calculation. It remained on his face as he went down in the elevator and walked through the lobby.

Kisara was being stubborn. He'd never had to deal with this side of her. Despite how close they acted, they really were only holiday-relatives. And despite how much his dear Cecelia had loved their goddaughter, Pegasus was finding that she could be _quite_ the pain when she wanted to be. Getting her out of Domino was proving tougher than he'd thought.

_Is it really worth all of this effort just to get her away from Kaiba-boy?_ A tired voice asked in the back of his head. _If she's so stubborn, she just might be able to hold her against him._

_No,_ Pegasus answered. It wasn't just Kisara's happiness and safety he was worried about. Well, he guessed it still was. When he'd spoken with his cousin, Ivan had sounded different from usual. More vicious, even for him, and more cunning, too. Pegasus wasn't the only one planning something in regards to what there was of Kaiba's and Kisara's relationship.

And there was something he'd noticed when he'd been talking with Kitty. She hadn't once mentioned Kaiba the entire time they'd been conversing, not even a mild mention of him had come up. If things weren't going well between them, that would make it all the easier for Pegasus. But just in case they were fine, he needed a backup plan. Luckily, he already had one in mind.

When he got into the Cadillac, he ordered, "Driver, let's drive by the Game Shop. There's a certain old man there I want to speak with."

On arrival, Yugi was upstairs doing his homework, and Solomon was just getting ready to close up the shop for the night. He looked up from behind the counter at the sound of the shop door being opened for Pegasus by Croquet.

"Ah, Grampa Moto! How are you? It's been _such_ a long time," Pegasus said as he walked through the door.

Solomon gasped. "Y-you! What do you want with me?" he asked fearfully, backing away from the figure who'd trapped his soul inside a card.

"Don't worry so much, Grampa Moto. It's nothing like that. I'm actually here to do you a favor."

* * *

Yugi and the gang were gathered in the computer lab for third period the next day. This was the only class all seven of them had together, and they made the most of it as they did what little work was required of them.

Knowing that the rest would freak out if he told them, Yugi was only relating Pegasus's visit to the Game Shop to Tea, sitting beside him. Or, at least, he was trying to. He just kept getting interrupted.

"Are we sure she's Russian?" Joey suddenly and without provocation mused in a far-off tone as he stared down at the portrait Kisara had drawn of him. He'd been carrying it around with him since Kisara had drawn it, pulling it out every now and then to admire it and make comments about it and the artist, all of them good.

He was met with stony silence and disapproving stares from his compatriots that he noticed when he looked up. "What? She doesn't even have an accent!"

"So you can't claim a nationality without having the accent?" Bakura asked in a brittle, British manner.

"Well, no, I don't mean _dat_," Joey said. "But what proof do we have that's she's really from dere? Really, I mean…" He waved his hand in the air to make up for his lack of reasons.

"Her last name," Tristan offered like he would to an idiot and enjoying himself as he did so.

"All those Russian websites that cropped up when we were looking for information on her," Bakura put in, his tone still a bit stiff.

"The fact that she said she was. Why would she lie about something like that?" Serenity asked.

"Okay, okay!" Joey cried in defeat. "Let's just forget I said anything!"

"Yes, _please_," Duke said. Joey glared at him.

Tea turned back to Yugi. "So what did Pegasus want," she whispered.

"I'm not sure. My grampa wouldn't tell me. But he actually seemed kind of happy, or, at least, not alarmed over the visit," Yugi said uncertainly, unsure of what was going on around him.

"That's odd. I mean, what could both Pegasus and your grandfather have in common?" Tea asked to herself. A light came on in her eyes. "Do you think maybe that Pegasus thinks there might be more Duel Monsters that he hasn't discovered yet, like in Egyptian ruins, or something? Maybe he's asking your grandfather to do something for him related to that since he was an archeologist and still has a passion for the game," Tea suggested.

"It could be. But why would he choose _Grampa_ when there are so many other younger, more successful archeologists? There's probably some simple explanation for it all. It's just avoiding us."

Tea sighed, realizing the whimsicality of her idea, but not really disappointed. "Yeah, you're probably right." She turned back to her computer and brought up a browser.

"What are you doing, Tea?" Yugi asked, curiously.

"I'm looking for more of Kitty's albums. Serenity and I went back to that store in the mall, but then all of her stuff was gone. So, we're going to go in together on a couple more of her CD's if we can find some on the internet. Then I'll just put them on my iPod and she's going to keep the actual discs."

"You guys really like her that much?" Tristan asked, having come up behind the two to see what they were doing.

"Yeah. I think she's really good," Tea said. "I'm hoping she has some more like the later ones on the one I was listening to."

"And here I thought it was all just a ploy to snoop into Kitty's life," Duke mocked, overhearing them.

"Hey, Serenity," Tea called, ignoring Duke and beckoning from the other side of the bank of computers.

"Hmm?" Serenity hummed, standing up with Tea's CD player in her hands. After Tea had spent the whole of last night listening to Kisara's first CD, she'd given it to Serenity to listen to make sure she wanted to buy some more of Kitty's CD's with Tea.

Serenity walked around to stand beside Tea, pulling the headphones from her ears and resting them around her neck. Tea began, "Here's a review of the last CD Kisara put out. It says that… umm… "Filled with angst and longing, "_Simple and Clean_" is the best work, I believe, that Kat Belvsky has ever produced. The truth of her personality is finally coming out after her regrettable involvement in the group Ki[Sara], possibly even because of it. Her more emotionally in-tuned fans will adore it, and those who are less sensitive will be getting an eye-opener. Here's hope that future music of Kat's will continue to contain such depth and soul.""

"Wow. That's some pretty high praise," Tristan commented.

"Well, of course it is," Bakura griped to himself a few computers down. _As if Kisara's work would be anything than the best._

"No kidding. But I'm getting the feeling that Kitty Belikova isn't the kind of person you'd ever give a bad review for any of her work, seeing how powerful and influential her family seems to be," Duke speculated, interested despite his sarcastic attitude before.

"Yeah. It's like how Kaiba doesn't get shit said about him 'cause he's, well, Kaiba!" Joey said, feeling the injustice of it all quite acutely. _At least, he doesn't get any of it said to his __**face**_, he thought, comforted.

"Can you click on the sample, Tea? I want to hear what the title track sounds like," Serenity said, leaning over Tea's shoulder.

"Sure." She turned the sound down really low on her computer, and clicked on the teaser song offered from the album, "Simple and Clean".

The chorus started immediately on the title track before immediately ending and beginning again, as if it were completely a new song.

"Oh, man. This is so much more her than her first one," Duke commented after the first verse.

"Shh," several of his friends shushed him.

Inside the puzzle, Yugi felt Yami agreeing with Duke's statement.

_How can you agree when you think she's out to get us? _Yugi asked, incredulously, though not accusatory.

_I've refined my ideas about Kisara Belikova,_ Yami responded.

… _And?_

_And I still believe there's something we can't quite trust about her. But, she's almost innocent of whatever it is that can't be trusted._

_Okay, I don't get it, Yami,_ Yugi admitted.

Yami was just glad Yugi was willing to listen this time to his fears. _Look at Bakura. _Yugi did._ Even though he supposedly did all those evil things, he didn't actually do it, did he? He was controlled by the Millennium Ring._

Yugi got it. But there were still some things that eluded him. _Kitty can't have a Millennium Item, can she?_

_Why not? It would make sense, and there's nothing to say she can't. Also…_

_Yes, Yami?_

_Have you noticed how all the souls within the Millennium Items usually have something to do with a person in this current time?_

_Like myself and Bakura? In some ways, I guess. You guys do seem to look like us. Except, what about Marik and the Rod?_ Yugi spotted a problem in Yami's ideology.

_I have a theory on that,_ Yami quickly answered._ When Marik came into the Millennium Rod, Ishizu told us that that was when he became twisted, yes? But the twisted part that came out of him wasn't a different spirit, but a darker part of his own self. So perhaps there was no spirit within the Rod to control him. But, obviously, the Rod rejected Marik, at least partially, and that's why he became so wrong. That would also explain Kaiba._

_Yeah, because Kaiba was the original bearer of the Rod in the past, and he has his own body now and is not trapped like you and the Spirit of the Millennium Ring are, so the Rod is empty. How did Kaiba get his own body?_

_I don't know. But looking at Kisara isn't there something that she reminds you of?_

_The Blue-Eyes White Dragon!_ Yugi's eyes widened.

_Yes. Do you see the connections I'm forming?"_

_Yes, of course. Could Kitty be here for Kaiba, if she is the Blue-Eyes?_ Yugi wondered.

The song "Simple and Clean" ended, and the next came on automatically.

"What's this one called, Tea?" Bakura asked.

"… Shadow Games."

Everyone looked around at each other expressions of shock on their faces.

_Again, Yugi, I don't know. But, I think that this just proves that Kisara has more of a past than we realized, and that there may be something that she's hiding. _

**Thanks for reading!**

**Songs mentioned:**

"**Simple and Clean" – Utada Hikaru**

"**Shadow Games" – ****Yugioh!**** Soundtrack (I'm not sure of the actual artist.)**

**Again, I've decided to split a single chapter into two, not necessarily because it got too long this time, but because this was a good place to stop. The second half is up, so go ahead and enjoy that; it's **_**way**_** longer than this, so don't fret. **


	7. Alone Together Part 2

**Just as a heads up, this chapter starts off as being chronologically out of order compared to the last chapter (set about in the middle of Ch. 6), but then it gets back to normal after the first page break.**

Friday had started with Kaiba arriving late to first period after he'd spent most of the night trying to figure out how to improve that damnable clamping problem with the new Duel Disks. It hadn't gone as well as he'd hoped and he'd ended up falling asleep at his office desk. He'd decided that morning that for Christmas he was going to ask Mokuba to get him an alarm clock for the office. His secretary had had to wake him up when she'd arrived, and she'd probably taken most of the shock when Kaiba had bolted upright after the first tap she'd given him on the shoulder.

He hadn't had time to go back to the house to get a new uniform or anything. He'd had to grab his clothes from yesterday, and he hadn't remembered until after he'd spent five precious minutes searching for it that he'd given his uniform jacket to Kisara to use in place of her own. All the way to the high school he'd been in a viciously foul mood over the muscle aches he had from sleeping over his desk, the fact that the clamp _still_ wasn't fixed, how the bruises on his arm from yesterday still hurt, and, finally, just all the hassle he would have to go through each new period when he had to make up a reason to the teachers for why he wasn't wearing his complete uniform, which would result in several little yellow slips of paper all telling him to go to the office and use one of the spare jackets they kept on hand, but they wouldn't have any that fit him because he was too _skinny_ and too _tall_ and had too broad of _shoulders_ all at the same frickin' time, so, he wouldn't get one and would have to go back period after goddamn period to get absolutely nothing done, unless he threatened the teachers, and… Seto had just wanted to scream at this point.

So Kaiba had not been in a good mood when he'd arrived late to school that morning.

He'd come in right in the middle of Wheeler's essay after going to the office to get a late slip. He'd been sure it would merely be the first of many visits. Domino High loved its uniforms.

Wheeler had been so smug when Kaiba had walked in late and without his jacket that, on his way back to his seat, Kaiba hadn't refrained from quietly commanding to him in passing, "Speak, dog. Speak."

Wheeler had, of course, almost flown off the handle, but Ms. Liddy easily got him under control.

Seto had gone back to his seat to find Kisara where she had sat the two days before, only now she was without her sweater, had a yellow slip on her desk, and refused to look at Kaiba.

In his seat had been Seto's neatly folded jacket; it had even looked like it had been washed.

He sat, putting on his jacket in a swift, fluid movement, catching Ms. Liddy's attention from where she was at her desk, filling out what would have been his yellow slip. She looked considerably non-plussed for a moment before letting the yellow slip drop into the recycling bin by her desk.

Wheeler had finished his error-riddled essay and taken his seat when Seto had leaned over to speak with Kisara.

"Kisara…" No response. "Kisara." Still none.

He had suddenly become pissed. What the hell had he done? She had been the one silently accusing him yesterday in the rest room.

She still blamed him. The rage building up in Seto almost exploded in the middle of class. So did his distress. He hadn't wanted her to blame him. He'd maybe actually kind of enjoyed having someone who wasn't a complete dumbass at school.

Then again, if she could believe he'd stoop to something so low for basically no gain, maybe she was an idiot, too.

"Look," he'd started vehemently. "Whatever your problem is, it's not mine, so get over it."

He actually hadn't expected anything in return, but slowly Kisara had turned her head in his direction, her eyes almost seeming to glow. "How is it not your fault?"

Seto was taken aback. "What's supposedly my fault, Kisara?"

"My pin," was all she said. She followed a moment with, "It disappeared with my sweater yesterday."

_Oh, gods._

"Kisara, I had nothing to do with—"

"Yeah, right." She'd turned back to the front of the class, not so much sarcastic as defeated.

It had been years since Seto had felt that roiling, hot ball of guilt in his stomach, but he had yesterday and he did again today. He hadn't planned in any way for the pin to be stolen along with the jacket, but, for reasons not clear to him, the mere fact that he had happened to be the one to encourage her to wear the brooch that day very nearly had brought him to apologize.

Then he had remembered that he was _Kaiba_. Kaiba apologized to no one and was the one _you_ disappointed, not the other way around.

"Like I said, it's not my problem," he'd repeated coolly.

She'd whirled her head around to face him again, her hair fling in a cascade of white streamers around her, distracting the next reader at the front of the room.

"You're just like Sara," she'd hissed for everyone to hear. The sudden display of almost violent accusation from the withdrawn new girl had shocked the class, stopping everything until Ms. Liddy had ordered them to pay attention again.

It had also weighted the ball of guilt within Seto to an almost unbearable mass. But he didn't let it show. He just shut himself down on the outside completely, letting nothing in and nothing out. He didn't know who this Sara was, but it was obvious that she'd done something to Kisara that she'd found unforgiveable.

Seto had wanted to punish Sara for whatever it was that had so clearly disturbed Kisara in the past. But it was obvious then that Kisara wanted nothing more to do with him.

So, in turn, Seto wanted nothing more to do with her. He couldn't stop himself from wondering things like what had Sara done to her and how could he prove his innocence, but he'd be damned if he showed it.

And that had set the tone for the rest of the day, as well as the weekend, and the school days following…

* * *

The early hours of Sunday morning, before dawn, Seto shot up in his bed, drenched in sweat.

He was certain… Was it real? … No, it couldn't be… But, it felt…

Seto was certain Kisara was dead.

Images of flying arrows and Kisara falling backwards to die in his arms flooded his mind.

_Kisara._

He had to find her. Now.

Two hours later, as the sun was cresting the lip of the hill behind the Kaiba mansion, Kisara groggily answered the ringing phone in her hotel room.

"H-hello?" she'd mumbled, stretching and draping an arm over her eyes to block the sun that was just beginning to peek in through her window as well. Milaya gave her a dirty look for disturbing her slumber before simply rolling over and curling up on her other side. "… Hello?" she asked again. There was a click and whoever had called her hung up. Kisara was too tired at that moment to think much about it, but later she'd devote a lot of time to it in her thoughts.

Back in his room, dressed in nothing but black pajama bottoms, Seto relaxed back into the chair of his home office. He'd found her, and she was fine.

He knew he should feel stupid about acting so rashly and calling every hotel he found in the phone book, often more than once after he'd remembered Kisara could be using one of her pseudonyms. He'd finally found her at the Wonderland Hotel using the name Kit Beltva.

But he couldn't bring himself to talk to her. The stupidity of it all really would have sunk in had he had to explain why he was calling at such an ungodly hour. Not to mention he was still peeved that she believed he'd stolen her precious brooch.

Just thinking about it made a dark scowl come over Seto's features. It also reminded him that he still had no clue who Sara was.

He wasn't getting any sleep now, so he may as well do something productive. He started up his home desktop in front of him that he needed to install new programs on anyway.

The familiar humming began and Seto fell back into the guise of computer programmer, which, at heart, he was. Computers and machines in general just made so much more sense than everything else in the world. There was no gray area with them, nothing hiding away in the darkness that couldn't be found or wasn't tangible in some way. You were right, or you were wrong. There was no middle ground to have to muddle through.

The computer asked him for his user name and password. Mokuba and himself were the only two who had access to this computer. And even Mokuba had to have a very good reason to be on it. Even so, Mokuba and Seto, while being different users, knew the others' password, just in case, but each respected the others' privacy enough not to go snooping.

Speaking of his little brother…

"Seto?"

Mokuba stood in the doorway, rubbing sleep from his eyes with the heels of his hands.

"What are you doing up, Mokuba?"

"I had a bit of a bad dream," he sheepishly admitted.

_Me, too._

"You should go back to bed," Seto suggested.

Mokuba ignored him and walked in to sit in the plushy stuffed chair to one side of the desk in Seto's home office. While the furniture in his office at Kaiba Corp. was designed to be sleek and somewhat intimidating, everything here at the mansion was chosen with his brother in mind, Seto knowing that Mokuba would be wanting to be near his brother.

Seto sometimes felt guilty for knowing how his brother felt and how he thought, almost like he was taking away some of Mokuba's freedom by being able to do so, especially since he purposely kept Mokuba out of his own mind. But at the same time he liked knowing what was playing in his brother's mind, like he was closer to him for it.

After settling himself into the comfy seat, curling up and straightening his pale purple PJ's, he turned to give his brother a sleepy smile and asked lazily, "Whatchya doin'?"

Seto winced, turning his face away from his computer loading his personal settings to give Mokuba a _look_.

"What?"

"If you're going to start talking like Wheeler just by texting with his sister—"

"I'm not," Mokuba replied, rolling his eyes. "Why do you dislike Joey so much?" he asked more to himself than his brother.

The computer finished waking up and Seto immediately opened up a web browser.

"What are you doing?" Mokuba queried, able to see some of the screen from where he sat.

"…Have you ever heard of someone named Sara being involved with Kisara?" Seto had suddenly realized that his brother might know a thing or two about this. Sometimes he forgot what a wonderful resource his little brother could be.

"Umm. No, I don't think I have. Why?" He was somewhat cautious now. After a lot of prodding and cajoling, Mokuba had finally gotten Seto to open up after he'd come home Friday in one of the foulest moods Mokuba had seen him in since Battle City. He hadn't been specific, but Mokuba had learned that whatever had been going right between him and Kisara had now gone wrong.

"It would seem I'm a lot like her, according to Kisara," Seto explained through clenched teeth.

"Oh," Mokuba said quietly. He was a little uncomfortable now, being in a room alone with Kaiba. Things had been a lot better ever since Seto had lost that first time to Yugi (not that Mokuba would ever dare say so aloud), but there was still something in Seto that would never change back to the brother he'd known, the one that used to have fun with him and call him "Mokie.".

Mokuba missed that.

Seto sighed and stretched his neck to one side, back to himself once more.

"So what are you going to do once you find out who she is?" Mokuba tentatively ventured. There was a flash in Seto's eyes. Not like Kaiba was back, but just there being plain anger there.

"I can't really see there being anything I can do, not that I know I want to," Seto answered shortly. It sounded like Sara had already done her damage anyway. All he wanted to know is what she had done.

"Do you know her last name or anything else about her?" Mokuba asked, pretty much awake now.

"No."

"So how are you going to find her just going by "Sara"?"

"I'm not just going by "Sara"."

Seto began typing: "Kisara + Sara + Russia."

Enter.

Pages filled with Cyrillic script came up.

"Damn," Mokuba stated. Seto grunted his agreement. But, keeping in mind that Seto was a computer programmer and was filthy rich, he called up a program one of his "friends" in the computer engineering world had come up with and simply set the parameters as being from Russian to English, and suddenly the web page was readable.

Mokuba sighed, knowing that now that Seto had a project, there was going to be little of him devoted to talking aloud. The hazy purple-eyed barely-a-teenager settled into the fluffy chair, and very slowly drifted back into his interrupted slumber to the sound of Seto scrolling through page… after page… after…

When Seto rolled back his chair after an hour and a half of searching, the sound woke Mokuba up.

"Mm? What did you find?" he asked through a yawn.

"It seems I've stumbled upon another of Kisara's bands or whatever," Seto answered, still looking at the computer screen. Mokuba didn't like the stony look in his brother's eyes.

"And?"

"The band was called Ki[Sara]. It was the first time Kisara ever let her real name even be referenced for any of her projects, though she still insisted upon being called by 'Kat Belvsky' whenever the members of the group were mentioned individually. She and Sara just basically sang together. People were surprised at the "screw you" attitude the songs had, since they'd never gotten that impression from Kisara before…" Seto trailed off.

"Is that all it has?" Mokuba finally questioned.

"No. It seems that after they put their first album out Sara started not being so friendly with Kisara. She did stuff like complain about Kisara not pulling her weight, say that she didn't have that great of talent, basically taking credit for all their accomplishments as her own, which turned out to be a lie."

"Ew," Mokuba muttered. Seto nodded. Lord knows why, but they both had issues when it came to people passing others' work of as their own. More than one Kaiba Corp. employee had found that out the hard way with a pink slip on their desk and a notice to clear out before the day's end, no hope of a favorable reference in their future.

"Sara was your basic unknown, starving (musical) artist who wasn't ever going to be able to make it on her own. But she was supposedly very charismatic, and it's been speculated that that's what Kisara fell for when Sara decided to ride Kisara's tailcoats to stardom," Seto read right off the screen. "And once she got there not only did she start horrible rumors about Kisara being on drugs, being an alcoholic, and having had several affairs with older men, but the thing that finally tipped the iceberg was when Sara appeared alone on a musical television show and sang songs that Kisara had written for herself and Sara had stolen."

"So Sara stole Kisara's material? All of it?"

"Seems that way." Seto was even flintier than before.

"But how are you like Sara, then?" Mokuba was definitely confused. Yeah, maybe Seto had had his bad times when he had been fully Kaiba. But that was over now, and there wasn't anything that Seto would even want to steal from Kisara, right?

"I'm not. Not in the way you're thinking at least."

"Huh?"

Seto sighed and rubbed between his eyes.

"I think it's more that, Kisara's had a bad time over here in some respects, and something that happened at the school just drudged up memories of an incidence like this one."

"Someone's pretended to be her friend and stolen something important to her already? She hasn't even been here a full three days."

Seto had gone still, eyes shut and in shadow.

"Oh, no, someone did? Who?" He asked incredulously. Mokuba may not have ever met Kisara personally, but that sort of thing was just sick.

"She thinks that I did." Seto kept his eyes shut.

Mokuba gasped, leaning forward in the chair. "But you wouldn't do something like that! How could she even think that?"

Seto looked at his little brother and the absolute faith and conviction pouring out of him at his older brother's defense.

A small, thankful smile came to Seto's lips. Sometimes this, Mokuba's unadulterated belief in him, was the only thing keeping him from delving into the darkness that everyone believed was his heart. Even with Mokuba having seen what Seto _could_ do, he still believed that his brother _wouldn't_ do it if he had a choice.

There was no real reason for Seto to have stolen the pin, and he told as much to Mokuba.

"But," he started, suddenly able to see Kisara's side now that someone had seen his, "if something like this had already happened to you, wouldn't a mere, accidental emulation of it be enough to make you distrustful and suspicious."

"Well, yeah, maybe. But why you?"

Seto paused, before continuing. "So far I've been the only one who's really tried to befriend her. And if she's been talking with her godfather, he no doubt has dripped some sort of poison into her ear to turn her against and get her away from me."

"Especially after Wednesday," Mokuba put in. Seto nodded.

"I was also the one who could almost be blamed for stealing the World Championship from her." Mokuba nodded, somewhat agreeing. "And, that day, I was the one who encouraged her to wear her pin after she'd said she was worried about losing it. I was also the only one she told about the significance of the pin."

Mokuba wined. "So who really stole it?"

"I thought it was Meg," Seto growled.

"That slime-ball?" Mokuba still couldn't believe his brother had sunk so low as to date her.

"Yes." Seto got his point. "She herself couldn't have taken it; I was _ensuring_ she wouldn't be doing anything else to Kisara when it went missing… It may all be disconnected, but when put together, I'm the prime candidate for stealing the pin and triggering another Sara-incident."

"Dang," Mokuba muttered.

"Yeah." They just sat in silence.

"Is there anything you can do to get her to realize it wasn't you?" Mokuba wondered. Seto had been not happier, but more content ever since Kisara had arrived, and Mokuba didn't want that to end.

"I doubt it." Seto leaned back in his chair. "She's not exactly trusting my word right now. And it's not like anyone else who's trustworthy can or would come to my defense."

"Maybe you could get the pin back from Meg _somehow_," Mokuba suggested. "It wouldn't clear you, but at least she'd have it back."

"She may know if one of her friends did it, but it may not have been them. Kisara's been making a lot of enemies just by keeping to herself," Seto said, remembering the fashionista and her cohorts looking at Kisara a lot before the Gatorade incident. They were all dramatics. They would do something as stupid as stealing a sweater to get revenge for an imagined slight.

"Even if it wasn't your fault, you can't really do anything to make it up to her, can you?" Mokuba asked glumly.

"Not without that bloody pin."

Mokuba sighed. _Well, it was nice while it lasted._

* * *

"Kisara… Kisara."

"Hmm. What?" Kisara came out of her thoughts, back to second period English, with a shake of her head. She turned to the voice: Kaiba's.

"What are you—?" he started. She quickly turned her head away again.

Seto glared at the side of her face, as she refused to meet his eyes, instead choosing to pick at the lapels of the new school sweater she'd bought over the weekend.

On Monday the pretense of their being friends any longer, if they even had been ever, was completely gone. The only problem was that now they were stuck beside each other in each of the classes they shared. More so, all of the teachers had gotten the impression over the first two days after Kisara had arrived that _finally_ there was someone Kaiba could work with. Which there had been, sort of, but no more. And it wasn't even necessarily Kaiba's fault this time for being too advanced or too high-end and superior. In fact, though now Kaiba was just as cold, Kisara had been the one to originally shun him.

For the first time in Kaiba's life, he knew what it felt like to be ignored. And he didn't like it.

He tossed the worksheet packet Mrs. Hildan had handed out onto her desk that, again, as a group of four they were supposed to complete. She couldn't very well ignore him if she had to write down the answers he told her.

She merely took the packet and began writing their names at the top. It was only two pages that they had to fill out, with the first worksheet they had had (two in their group's case) stapled to the back of them for reference, but it was still opinion-based about what they thought of Dimmesdale at this point in the story. It was Wednesday again, a week since Kisara had arrived, and everyone had been required to read to the second scene with Hester and Pearl up on the stage with Dimmesdale.

"So?" she questioned the other two members of their group.

"Self-mutilation? Yick. I still don't like Dimmesdale," one of them said moodily.

Kisara began writing as much, if in a slightly more sophisticated manner.

The other person looked like they wanted to object and defend Dimmesdale again, but without Kisara to back them up they didn't seem to have the backbone to do as much.

"Maybe not so much," Seto mentioned. The other two looked in shock, probably thinking stuff along the lines of 'but, wasn't he the one that _hated_ Dimmesdale on Thursday?'

Seto looked at Kisara for a moment, wanting her to at least look at him. But all she did was pause a moment in her writing before starting again. Once she finished putting down the anti-Dimmesdale opinion (which Seto still believed but had just wanted to get some sort of reaction out of Kisara), she started a second, pro-Dimmesdale one (which she still believed, but hadn't the energy to make her point).

It continued like that for the rest of the period, their group putting down twice as much work in less the time because there was no debating, but still two separate viewpoints to write with.

When Mrs. Hildan collected the work, she noticed the lines upon lines of small, blue ink script. "Can't you lot just compromise?" she asked exasperatedly, though smiling when she said it. She got no response from either Seto or Kisara, just some mumbled, petulant excuses from the other two group members.

The moment the bell rang, Kisara got up from her desk and went to the door.

There was someone there waiting for her. She and Alec Pharney walked to their art class together, leaving Seto standing at the English room door with a look on his face that had everyone else looking away. The only thing that comforted him was that they looked as if they were arguing about something. But even that didn't help much when she refused to so much as argue with him.

History passed and Seto went to Gym on his own, not bothering to walk Kisara to the class if she had _Alec_ now to do that.

Today, again, was lap-running in Gym, but rather than keeping pace with anyone, Seto made it his goal to outpace everyone, taking his anger out on himself by running himself ragged. After Seto was five laps ahead of the second fastest runner, the coach told him to take a breather and allowed him to leave before the rest.

Seto took a quick shower, finishing by the time the faster runners made it into the locker rooms, and left to go find somewhere to spend the lunch hour. He hadn't been sitting at his usual table since what had happened on Thursday, instead choosing the library or an unused hallway as a place to go. But today he couldn't be cooped up inside. It was autumn and, though recently the weather had been getting colder, today it was warm enough to permit people out in the school courtyard.

He chose the low, brick wall that separated the grass from the sidewalk on one side of the courtyard, where he did… nothing. There was absolutely nothing to do but sit around and watch what others were doing.

_How pathetic._

* * *

"So what are we to do about Kitty?" Serenity finally asked.

They'd all been avoiding the question for days. After all, what _was_ there to do? Accuse her of being a dragon? And that they knew this because of a spirit trapped in a miniature upside-down pyramid told them? Yeah, that would go over well. She'd probably get a restraining order against them or just plum go back to Russia.

The idea of which, Yami still wasn't opposed to. He may agree, somewhat, that his repugnance towards her wasn't entirely her fault, but it was still there and it was still directed at her. He wanted her gone.

"I don't gotta clue," Joey said, somewhat out of it. Lying on his back in the grass, he was surrounding on all sides by his friends. Tea, Serenity, Bakura, and Yugi were seated at a park table the school had outside under a tall dogwood tree whose leaves were on the brown side of turning from flaming scarlet red to dirty orange-brown. Duke was sitting in the roots of the tree, trying to figure out some last minute Pre-Calculus problems, and Tristan was lying near Joey, their head and feet in reverse of each other.

"Maybe we should talk to Kaiba about it? Warn him or something about what he might be getting into," Bakura put forth.

Tristan snorted. "As if Kaiba would even hear us out, much less believe us." He shot down the idea.

"Actually, if things keep going the way they are, we may not have to worry about Kaiba being close to Kitty," Tea commented.

"Yeah, did you see them today? Ever since Monday they haven't been speaking to each other," Yugi said

"I think it's sad," Serenity murmured. "I mean, I know we don't know what exactly Kitty is, but it was nice seeing Kaiba actually talking to someone." Serenity couldn't help but see goodness in everyone, and though others may have problems seeing it, she saw it in even Kaiba.

"Yuh huh, truly heartbreakin'," Joey muttered. Tristan smirked beside him. Some of the guys at school, Joey Wheeler and Tristan Taylor among them, were secretly enjoying Kaiba being given the silent treatment by the most talented and most beautiful girl in the school. It helped to save their egos a little after the almost constant pummeling they'd been taking ever since Seto had first been forced to go to Domino High School.

Served the jerk-wad right.

Something colorful waving in the tree caught Joey's attention, and he tuned out of the conversation.

A bunch of girls walked by the group. One of them was Paisley, the fashionista, and she kept pointing at the limbs of the tree the gang was under, and her friends kept laughing and laughing at whatever it was she was saying and pointing at.

When they'd passed by, Yugi, watching them leave, said aloud, "I wonder what that was about."

"Who knows," Duke answered from the base of the tree, not even looking up. Man, he hated math.

"Hmm." Joey sat up, still staring at the branches of the tree. "I think I…"

Suddenly Joey was on his feet and walking over to where Duke sat. When he was right in front of the guy, Duke looked up and asked, "What do you think you're doing?"

"Give me a boost," Joey commanded.

"What?" Duke was not impressed.

"C'mon. I said, give me a boost. I think I saw somethin' up dere, an' I wanna check it out."

"Yeah, right. You won't even make it to the first branch!"

Joey brought out his puppy-dog eyes. "Please, Duke."

"Fine, for Christ's sake," Duke relented. Standing up, Duke locked his fingers together and braced himself.

With both Joey and Duke putting in a lot of effort, they got Joey in range of the lowest branch which he latched onto like a lemur.

"You can take it from there, can't you?" Duke questioned, not sure if he would try to help break his friends fall if he lost his grip or not.

"Oh, yeah. I've been doing this since I could walk," Joey boasted.

"He really has," Serenity confirmed with a sigh. "Mom always used to say that Joey's climbing ways would be the death of her."

"Or at least the death of Joey," Tristan remarked, deciding to get up and move out of the way in case Joey really did come falling back to earth.

"Thanks a lot, Tristan," Joey snarled from above.

With the gang watching in amazement, Joey maneuvered his way about the only semi-sturdy branches and up the tree. The only time he even seemed slightly in danger was when a medium sized-bird with black feathers was disturbed by his approach and practically flew into his face.

"Found it!" he called down to them when he reached his goal.

Quickly and recklessly, he made his way back down the tree, jumping the several feet from the lowest limb to the ground without any assistance.

"Ta da!" He held his arms out, ready to accept their praise.

"You could have broken your neck, Joey," Bakura was the first to comment, more in wonder than consternation. The others followed up with reprimands of their own, ending with Serenity shaking her head and saying, "Oh, Joey."

"Oh, c'mon! Dat was some real acrobatics dere! How can you people not see it for da amazin' performance dat it was?"

"Maybe it's just that we like you better being able to walk rather than having you roll around after us in a wheelchair," Tristan speculated.

"You can shove it, Tristan," Joey retaliated.

"Why'd you go up there anyway?" Duke asked, arms crossed and a single eyebrow raised.

"Ta get dis." Joey held up what looked like a large pink rag.

"Uh, what is it?" Yugi asked, perplexed.

"I dunno know. I just thought it was odd that it was in the tree," Joey confessed.

"Do you think it might be Kisara's jacket, the one that was stolen?" Tea wondered.

"Oh, yeah.," Joey murmured. His eyes brightened and he held the sweater up. "Yeah! Dis might be it—"

Seto, after watching from the other side of the courtyard and seeing the fashionista pointing and what Joey brought down, was over to them in an instant, ripping the sweater from Joey's grasp before the blonde even had a clue as to what was going on.

"_Hey!_ Oi, Kaiba!"

"_Where did you find this?_" he snarled. Tea and Serenity both recoiled from his cruel, condemning tone.

"I found it up a tree, Kaiba," Joey growled through clenched teeth as he attempted to snatch the battered, pink article back, but Kaiba kept his grip firm on it, and it ended up stretched taut between them. "Which is exactly where _you_ should go. Now give it back!" Threads were starting to pull apart on the already frazzled sweater from the tension being put on it by the two almost-men.

"Guys, stop it," Serenity ineffectually pleaded. "The sweater's going to—"

It ripped apart, sending Joey tumbling head-over-heels to the ground and making Seto take several steadying steps back.

"Look what ya did, Kaiba!" Joey ranted as he recovered, shaking the fist with his half of the sweater clenched in it at Seto. Seto paid him no attention, turning his half of the sweater, the upper half, around and about, like he was searching for something. Finding nothing but a torn hole where the brooch should have been, he threw the mangled cloth to the ground and demanded of the gang, "Where's the pin?"

He got dumbfounded looks from the lot of them. "What are ya talkin' about, Kaiba?" Joey finally asked, trying to put a note of superiority into his question, wanting Kaiba to get a taste of his own medicine.

"The pin that I told you she had, Joey. The silver one," Serenity put in, understanding. "It must have been on her sweater when it was taken." They watched as Seto walked all around the base of the tree, scanning the ground for anything that flashed in the light. The bell ending lunch sounded, and the gang started packing up their things to get back to class.

"Oh, hey," Joey started, remembering as he plucked a black feather from the front of his jacket. "Dere was a bird's nest up dere. I think it was dat raven's, or whatever it was. Ravens like shiny things don't dey?" He got a really sly look on his face, before turning away to walk to class. "Have a good time climbin' up dere to check it out, Kaiba. I'm not goin' up there again," he called back over his shoulder.

"Joey," Tea admonished quietly.

"What? Let the bastard get it himself if it's up dere! I'm not one of his servants." Joey stomped off, the rest following him at slower paces, looking back occasionally to see Kaiba staring at the upper branches of the tree.

"Do you think he's actually going to climb up there? I thought he and Kitty weren't even speaking to one another," Duke mentioned to Tristan as they brought up the rear of the group.

"I don't know, man. Maybe Kaiba wants to do something to make something up to her. Who knows?" They continued walking along, and Duke came up with one more question.

"Can you even imagine Kaiba climbing up a tree?" That brought Tristan up short. They both turned back to look at Kaiba only to find he wasn't there.

Looking at each other they both began speaking.

"You don't suppose…"

"Do you think he…?"

"Hurry up, guys!" Yugi called from the door to the school.

"You're going to be tardy!" Bakura added. They both hustled after the rest, wondering if… maybe?

* * *

"Kisara," a strong voice called out from down the hall. Having kneeled down to gain access to the bottom of her locker, she looked up from there, amazed that it was his voice she was hearing. Then she remembered what he'd done and quickly stood, closing her locker and getting ready to flee.

"No you don't," Seto muttered under his breath. He picked up his pace and was soon in front of her, blocking her way.

She stopped, but refused to look at him, instead staring down at the books she held tightly to her chest as a shield. They were the only two left in the halls, the tardy bell already having rung. A quick thought fluttered through Seto's mind, _I wonder where's she's spending lunch now._ He shook his head, clearing such things from his mind, and then held out his right fist.

He waited until she directed her sadly blue gaze to the outstretched hand before turning it over and unwrapping his fingers, much like a flower unbending its petals. His fingers revealed Osiris, accompanied by silver etchings of hieroglyphics, resting as a flat oval disk on his palm.

Her eyes widened, and she silently filled her lungs to bursting with a swell of air. Slowly, she reached out her hand, and very delicately lifted the brooch from Seto's palm, carefully avoiding touching his skin. As she pulled away her slim, beautiful hand, Seto followed it with his own and grasped her about the wrist, preventing her from retreating her hand further.

It was firm, but not threatening.

Kisara looked up in surprise at the flesh-to-flesh contact, gasping at the sight of his eyes. They were forcefully burning with sincerity and determination, and, just maybe, a touch of desperation for her to understand.

"I did not take it, Kisara."

And that was all he said before he released her and walked away to their fifth period psych without her.

Turning around to watch him walk away, Kisara noticed several long, thin scratches on his school jacket that hadn't been there before, where it looked to have been snagged by something. Come to think of it, there had also been slight scrapes on his hand when he'd presented her pin to her.

Her pin. Kisara looked down at it again. A few small shiny, yellowish spots had formed a bit around the left edge, indicating it was on the verge of tarnishing in those places from being exposed to the elements, but besides that there was nothing else changed about it.

_Had he been telling the truth? Did he really not have it the entire time?_ Kisara flashed back to the sight of Seto's eyes when he'd given her the pin. There was no way he could have been lying.

Kisara closed her hand around the piece of jewelry and held it to her heart. If only he'd given it to her earlier, though, now she knew it hadn't been his fault. Still, Pegasus would be back from his business trip in a few days, and he expected her answer then in regards to leaving. Scratch that. He expected her to answer that she _was_ leaving. She'd had her time to come to terms, and it was now time for her to forget this foolish bid for independence.

That's what her godfather would be expecting when he got back. And Kisara could see the logic behind it, but… did she really want to go back to Russia? To the dysfunctional half a family? To the memories?

Or was there something worth staying for here?

Kisara left the school, needing time to think things over. Taking one look back at the building, still clutching her pin in hand, Kisara knew she needed to decide if, when it came down to it, her decision of whether to leave and go back to Russia, or stay here in Domino, would be decided with what her head told her was logical, or with what her heart told her was _right_.

* * *

On the other side of the world, Pegasus sat in his cousin's home study.

"I'm not sure I understand you, dear Ivan. What exactly do you mean?" Pegasus understood exactly what Ivan had told him. He just couldn't _believe_ it.

"Come now, Pegasus. I've heard of what you did during Duelist Kingdom." His strong Russian accent combined with his obvious arrogance made Ivan sound just as slimy as his cousin. Ivan smirked, his pale blue eyes twinkling at the knowledge he could hold over Pegasus's head.

"That has nothing to do with anything you're talking about," Pegasus rejoined, passing over how Ivan could have gained knowledge of anything that had happened on that island.

"I don't know. I think it does. The rest of the world thinks of us Russians as being superstitious anyway, so I might as well oblige them. I believe what I was told about your island entertainment. Sealing into cards people's souls! How fantastical! And, yet, I can see it, especially with you, dear cousin, pulling the strings." It was not praise. "Now the question is, can _you_ see the beasts already in the cards, coming _out_?" Ivan watched his cousin carefully, running a hand through his hair, tucking the curly black locks behind his ear.

"Not in a million years," Pegasus answered categorically. "Unless, of course, you're talking about Kaiba-boy's holograms," Pegasus mentioned seemingly casually. Ivan's pale eyes glared maliciously at Pegasus for the mere mention of the Kaiba name.

"_Chert by tebya pobral_. No, that would not be what I meant." Ivan suddenly leaned forward, a dangerously excited glittering in his eyes. Pegasus did not trust his cousin merely for that sparkle; the same one he had that revealed to others that, though they may appear gentlemen on the outside, they were not. "Let me show you what I mean." He stood up and walked to his study doors, waiting there for Pegasus.

"I know what you mean, Ivan, and the idea of Duel Monsters being _real_ in this day and age is utterly ludicrous." Pegasus remained seated, though his curiosity was making a valiant effort to get him on his feet. _What if it were true?_

Ivan chuckled to himself. "You sound like I did when they first introduced me."

"Who, Ivan?" Pegasus tried to make himself seem bored by it all, but Ivan caught the note of interest in his words.

"The Collectors. They collect Duel Monsters, Pegasus, and not the kind you came up with." Ivan smirked at how still Pegasus had become. "Come, _dorogoi__̆__ kuzen_. See the proof they provided me with," he beckoned.

Pegasus stood up and followed.

They went all the way through the house and down to the wine cellar of the house before Pegasus spoke again.

"Ivan, if this is a joke meant to make fun of my discoveries in Egypt…" he warningly trailed off.

Ivan merely shook his head and laughed, muttering, "_Vy uvidite, dorogoi__̆__ moi__̆__ dvoyurodnyi__̆__ brat. Vy uvidite_."

They reached a door in the cellar. When Ivan opened it, Pegasus expected chains, darkness, and the like. Instead, it was a small room with a bed, a few books on a shelf, a sink in the corner, and a little door leading to a cramped bathroom beside it. The door hadn't even been locked.

"Pegasus, meet my guest, _Temnyi__̆__ Mag._ He's on loan at the moment, but I think he's worth the cost." Ivan waved his arm to a man lying on his stomach on the bed, a book in his grasp.

Pegasus saw nothing special until the guest, "_Temnyi__̆__ Mag,_" raised his face to the intruders, and Pegasus saw the sharp aquamarine eyes held in the severe facial structures.

After staring a moment, Pegasus breathed, "May the gods help us all."

Hearing him, Ivan smirked, more than an edge of cruelty in the harsh smile. Under his breath, he corrected, "May the gods help my daughter."

It was later in the evening on Wednesday when the phone rang at the Kaiba mansion.

* * *

Seto had been deciding on which outfit he was going to wear to an important business meeting later that week. (It was only important to the other people attending. To Seto it was just several hours of being bitched and whined at for other people's lack of skills and expertise.) Mokuba had been in the middle of Seto's bed, lying on his stomach, doing the last of his homework as he kicked his legs back and forth in the air. People wondering why Mokuba felt such a strong connection to his brother, when the majority of the time they were seen together Seto was ignoring him or bossing him around, never saw the moments like these: the two of them simply basking in each others' company, no need for words between them, just the knowledge that their brother _was_ there if they needed him.

It was into the perfectly contented silence that the phone in Seto's room began ringing.

"Oh, great. What went wrong, _now_?" Mokuba asked sarcastically, petulantly from the bed, knowing that the only people who had knowledge of the Kaiba home's phone number were always the ones whose job it was to be the bearers of bad news.

Seto gave his brother a relaxed smirk as he walked to the phone stand. Mokuba twitched up the side of his mouth in a tired grin, then began gathering up his books and papers. This call could possibly last for the next however many hours, or even require Seto to go back into the office, so there was no point in sticking around. They didn't call the boss over the little stuff, after all.

Seto picked up the cordless, hitting the 'call' button as he raised it to his ear.

"Yes?"

Silence.

Seto's eyes immediately narrowed and his voice dropped to a harsh growl. "If this is a prank call—" that got Mokuba's attention "—or, you're some deranged fan, I'll—"

"Seto?"

_Kisara._ It felt like it had been so long since he'd heard her voice.

"Kisara… How did you—?"

"I figured you might be the one who called a few days ago, and no one's called this phone since, so, you know, just star-sixty-nine, and all that… jazz…" she trailed off awkwardly.

Seto turned and caught sight of Mokuba staring at him with wide, expectantly eager eyes from his position kneeling on the bed. He made "well, go on" motions with his hands, biting down on his lower lip from the excitement of it all. Seto pointed at the door. Mokuba shook his head. Seto added in a glare. Mokuba raised his eyebrows defiantly and crossed his arms, nodding to the phone. Seto—

"If… if this is a bad time, I can just talk to you at school," Kisara rushed out, sounding as if she was two seconds away from hanging up.

"No, it's fine," Seto responded, continuing to glare at his little brother. Mokuba smiled triumphantly and made "hurry up" gestures. "What do you need?" Seto settled for turning his back to his brother. The bed springs creaked as Mokuba hurriedly climbed off the bed and quickly came to stand in front of Seto, watching his expressions closely.

"Um… I wanted to tell you that I'm sorry for blaming the pin thing on you," Kisara said quietly. Seto couldn't bring himself to say anything. He was breathless. In front of him, Mokuba was fidgeting with the want to know what was being said. The expression on Seto's face really was something. "And I forgot to tell you 'thank you' earlier, when you actually gave the pin back. Well, not _back_. What I meant was—"

"You're welcome."

Mokuba's eyes were the size of dinner plates. _What was she saying?_

Kisara sighed in relief and somewhat happily. "Thanks."

"I'm only going to say 'you're welcome' so many times, Kisara," Seto warned, not in the least bit cruelly. He was still sort of in a daze.

Kisara gave a short tinkling laugh that brought Seto fully back to himself with its clarity.

"Is there anything else you needed?" he asked, almost but not _quite_ gently.

Mokuba was about to start chewing on his hair with his need to know what was going on. _Come on, come on._

"Hm. Did we do anything in Chemistry?" she asked for the novelty. It was like nothing had ever happened. No, that wasn't quite right. It was like nothing _bad_ had ever happened, but something good. Something that brought them closer together.

Seto huffed the smallest of laughs, and Mokuba's hair was subjected to the remorseless chewing and gnashing of his teeth. "No, not a thing."

She sighed happily again, if more softly. "Good. I'll see you tomorrow?"

"Of course." Seto had the smallest of smiles on his face.

"Good. Well, goodnight, Mr. Kaiba," Kisara teased.

"Are you going to be there tomorrow?" he abruptly asked.

A pause. "Yes. I'll be there tomorrow." Her answer held a deeper level of commitment than was really necessary.

"Very well, then. Goodnight, Ms. Belikova," Seto bid farewell.

"Mm." It was a moment, a moment filled with ease at both ends, before she hung up.

Seto slowly drew the cordless down from his ear and placed it back in its cradle.

"Mnnh, ack! What did she want?" Mokuba cried. He'd just about died when Seto had begun smiling.

Seto looked down at Mokuba, whom he'd forgotten was there. Noticing the soggy, crumpled hair, some of it still clinging to Mokuba's cheeks, he answered, "She needed to know what we'd done in Chemistry today. I told her nothing." Seto tried to turn away from the for sure eruption about to happen.

"You're lying, Seto Kaiba," Mokuba accused. "You did not tell her "nothing." You told her a _lot_ more than that. Tell me what she said!" He scurried after Seto, intent on getting an answer.

Seto stopped in the middle of the room and looked down at his little brother, seeing past the childish petulance and whining to a solid determination and a gladness for his older brother deep in his dark lavender eyes. Seto's own cobalt eyes softened for a moment at the sentiment there, but this was something Seto was going to keep to himself.

"Mokuba…" There was a note in his voice that, while not threatening, clearly got the message across Mokuba wasn't going to be told anything.

Mokuba huffed a sigh. "Fine." He left his brother's side and went over to the bed, grabbing his pile of school work.

"Mokuba," Seto called after his little brother as he reached the door.

The young teen looked back, and, seeing the look on Seto's face, said, "Yeah I know."

Maybe Seto wasn't the only one who could read his brother's mind.

"Goodnight!" Mokuba called as he left.

"Goodnight," Seto said quietly, once Mokuba was already gone.

He looked around his now empty room, eyes coming to rest on the phone. He felt the need to call Kisara back, though the hell if he knew what they would talk about.

Instead, Seto got ready for bed, undressing and grabbing his pajama bottoms from the closet. He'd finish figuring out what to wear later.

As he crawled into bed, Seto thought, _Tomorrow I'll give her my cell number._ After all, he couldn't have her learning the house phone.

Seto drifted to sleep, and when he woke up in the morning, just as he'd believed Kisara had been dead, he now felt as if there had been a hand in his, holding his throughout the entire night.

**Thank you for reading!**

**I know that I've gotten into a nasty habit when it's come to updating this story, and I'm sorry. But, unfortunately, that may (almost certainly) be getting even worse in the future months. For my senior Culminating Project I've decided to write a fanfic, again using Seto Kaiba and other characters from ****Yugioh!****, and I need to devote myself to that since the Culminating Project is a graduation requirement in my state.**

**The new fanfic will be called ****The Kaiba Heir****, and it will be one of those 'what if Noah had never had his accident?' stories. The first chapter comes out Nov. 13****th****, 2010. I hope to see you there!**


	8. French Cussing

**Surprise! As I said in ****The Kaiba Heir****, to celebrate my first full year of belonging to , I decided to update the first fic I ever published. I hope it will be worth the wait to those of you who've been hanging on for the past four months. **

**This chapter doesn't have a whole lot of plot relevance, I'm afraid, but since I'm still trying to figure out what the concrete plot **_**is**_**, I thought some filler might be useful to help the story along.**

A short period of calm followed the first action-filled days after Kisara's arrival. This surprised Seto, not only because he hadn't been sure if Kisara and himself would have another "encounter," but also because the press should have been swarming Kisara by now. So far, though, she'd said she'd seen neither hide nor hair of any member of the bloodthirsty media.

It all made Seto suspicious and wary. That's why, almost three weeks after Kisara's first appearance on the scene when she didn't arrive or show up at school for first period, Seto actually felt a release of tension for something finally having gone wrong before the worry set in.

It wasn't until about five minutes before first period ended, when Seto was ready to start chewing on his desk, that Kisara finally arrived.

For a moment Seto thought that Kisara had once again been the victim of a Gatorade attack. She was dripping wet from head to toe, and her soaked hair was covering her face, hiding her expression from Seto. He was ready to leap to his feet and go find Meg for another _chat_ when he remembered that it had been on the verge of raining when he'd gotten to school. It must have started up during class, but the windows were still shaded after that first day of Kisara's blinding white hair. She must have gotten caught in the middle of the unseen deluge.

"I'm so sorry I'm late," she said, walking in and handing Ms. Liddy a slip of yellow paper, excusing her absence, leaving a trail of water droplets behind her.

"Kitty, are you alright?" Ms. Liddy asked concernedly. She'd taken an odd shine to the new girl, especially after Kisara had taught her how to properly walk in her beloved high heels during a free period about a week ago. "If you need to, you can go and try to dry off in the bathroom," she offered.

"Thank you. I'll—" The bell rang.

"Here, I'll write you a note so you don't need to rush to your next class." Ms. Liddy turned back to her desk as the rest of the students made their way out the door.

Seto walked up to Kitty, an eyebrow raised. She shook her head, a self-deprecating smile on her face, and mouthed 'I'll tell you later'.

"Here you go, Kitty," Ms. Liddy announced, handing over a pink post-it note with her handwriting all over it.

"Thanks again, Ms. Liddy."

"You're welcome. Now, off you go," she said, shooing them out the door.

When they were partway down the hall, Seto asked, with a sarcastic cast to his lips, "Well?"

She chuckled nervously to herself. "Well…I moved into my new apartment, and I'm not exactly as familiar with the bus routes yet as I should be."

"You missed the bus," Seto surmised.

"Not exactly. I first got on the wrong bus, and _then_ I missed the one I was supposed to get on," she corrected, pursing her lips trying to keep a smile off her face. "So I missed it twice."

"That's really sad," Seto said, a cruelly teasing note in his voice. "Really, really sad, Kisara."

"I _know_," Kisara laughed, blushing as deeply as her fair skin would allow.

"I don't suppose you stored an extra uniform in your locker for such occasions?" Seto asked, gesturing to her soaked frame.

"No. I know that I could just go get a spare jacket from the office, but could I borrow yours again?"

Seto turned and blinked at her. "Explain, Kisara."

"I need your jacket for a project that Alec and I are doing in art."

Seto stiffened at the mention of _Alec. _"What for?" he asked as the girls' bathroom came into sight.

"Alec needs to do some extra credit work to make sure he doesn't fail. He saw me the day you left your jacket in my locker, and he had an idea. It's not exactly original, but he really wants to try it."

"What is it exactly?" Seto asked suspiciously. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed that he and Kisara were leaving a dripping trail behind them.

"Basically, a watercolor of me wearing your jacket over my normal school uniform sans the pink sweater."

"And that's all?" It seemed hardly worth asking about. "Why don't you just use his?"

"I could, but Alec is a bit scrawny. His jacket doesn't "drape" around me like yours did, and supposedly that's a major factor for Alec. We already tried getting the office to lend us one, but they just kept wriggling out of it every time we thought we had them cornered." She stuck out her tongue a tad bit. "Nasty people live in the office."

Seto chuckled. "Sure."

"Thank y—" Kisara's soggy shoes slipped out from under her and she landed on her rear on the floor. Seto noticed that they weren't the blue heels that she'd been wearing for much of the past weeks, but a pair of blue and pink tennis shoes… a pair of blue and pink tennis shoes that barely had any traction whatsoever.

"Nice," he commented before reaching down and helping her back up. Kisara was giggling to herself even as she rubbed the pain from her lower back.

"Ouch. My mother would so punish me for that."

"Because she'd the one who instructed you in dance?" Seto guessed.

"Yeah. Man, that hurt. But anyways, thank you for use of your jacket."

"It's not a problem." They were just outside the bathroom door. Seto gently reached out and grabbed Kisara's arm, stopping her and pulling her back to stand by him. "Just wait here a moment until the bell rings."

"Won't you get in trouble for being late?" Kisara questioned, unconsciously relaxing at Seto's side.

"It's hard to say with Mrs. Hildan. I don't much care either way."

"That's how Alec talks, and _he_ has to do extra credit work and is almost constantly spending his mornings and afternoons in detention," Kisara warned, her eyebrows quirked in amusement.

"_Alec_ isn't an A-_plus_ student, and _Alec_ doesn't give the school thousands of dollars every year in funding. I don't think I have to worry about detention," Seto informed her condescendingly.

The bell rang just as Kisara finished rolling her eyes. The halls were practically clear by that time, but a few stragglers remained. One final girl in the parade to and from the bathroom came hurriedly through the door, her eyes widening at the pair she saw standing and waiting outside. Once she had gone on her way and no one else was left in the hallway Seto and Kisara ducked inside.

"No offense, Seto, but it's a tad odd that you don't mind just strutting into girls' bathrooms," Kisara remarked as she made her way over to the sink.

"I don't _strut_," Seto responded aloofly, beginning to unbutton his jacket.

"Just keep telling yourself that," she kidded him, tugging at the sleeves of her wet sweater, trying to peel it off, but not having an easy time of it.

"You're starting to remind me of my little brother," Seto remarked dryly, not sure of how he felt about that. He shrugged the undone jacket off and hung it one of the pegs set into the wall as a coat rack.

"It sounds like the word 'pesky' should be in there somewhere." She got one sleeve off and the second wasn't as hard after that. She hastily compressed as much water as she could from it over the sink before hanging it on one of the pegs as well. "I've never met your brother."

"You probably will. He's _so_ excited about what he calls 'the one friend his brother has ever made.'" Seto scoffed.

"What, I'm not?"

"No, you are, I guess," Seto mumbled, watching Kisara gather up all of her considerable amount of hair.

Kisara sniggered good-naturedly.

"On a new, random topic, I finally got a chance to read all the stuff you wrote on my schedule that first day," Kisara said as she wrung out her hair in the sink. "I think you should start writing comedy," she teased, using the mirror to look him in the eye as she flashed her almost luminous white teeth in a daring grin. Seto smiled back.

"It was all true."

"Which is why it was funny, especially the part about my coming to hate Mr. Bronze." She wrinkled her nose at the man's name.

"Again, it was just the truth." Everyone hated Mr. Bronze.

"Hmm." Grabbing her backpack from the floor, Kisara pulled out a heavy-duty hairbrush and got to work, not that there were too many kinks to work out. Her hair flashed in the fluorescent lighting as she dragged the brush through it.

When she finished, she put the brush away and walked over to the coat pegs. "Thanks, again—"

"Stop thanking me. Seriously, Kisara. It's just a jacket."

Kisara grabbed and wrapped herself in it. It didn't dwarf her as much as Seto thought it would; she was fairly tall. But the sleeves still almost completely hid her hands, the collar brushed her ears which still wore the silver spiral earrings Pegasus had bought for her, and the hem fell almost as low as her skirt's did. She left it unbuttoned, and Seto had to admit she really did look great in blues and whites.

Looking over at her still dripping pink sweater, a slightly mischievous look came to her features.

"Don't even think it, Kisara," Seto quickly spat. "It's not even funny."

"It might have been a little funny," Kisara argued.

She snagged her damp sweater from its peg, rolled it in a ball and stuck it in her backpack. "I'm going to stop by the locker room to hang this up in there."

"I'll go with you." He went over and held the door open for her.

"It's nice having my own personal doorman," she commented as they began the walk to the girls' locker room.

"Whatever."

"Hi, Kitty," a voice said in front of them.

"Alec, we were talking about you earlier," Kisara greeted. The slightly delinquent and fairly dorky sophomore stood in their path, seeming to have a need to talk with them.

"Seto, this is Alec. Alec, this is Seto," Kisara introduced merrily enough.

Seto extended his hand out of habit.

"Nice to meet you, Alec."

"Yeah, the same, uh, Kaiba." Alec accepted the handshake, not meeting Seto's eyes. There was no way he was taking the liberty of calling Seto by his first name.

They dropped hands and a moment of silence insinuated itself.

"Anyway," Kisara broke in, "Seto agreed to let us use his jacket." She fluffed the article where it sat on her shoulders.

"Cool. But aren't you going to get in trouble if you wear that all day?" Alec asked, nervously shifting his weight from one foot to the other. "And won't you get in trouble for _not_ wearing it?" he directed the second question at Seto.

"Aren't you going to get in trouble if you keep skipping class?" Seto rejoined stiffly. Alec's propensity for cutting classes was infamous and the only thing he was really known for. Other than that he was one of your high school nobodies. Even the geek squad, having Yugi Moto and Joey Wheeler in their ranks, was higher up on the status totem pole than _this_ guy. And his constant skipping was probably why he needed to do an extra credit project.

"Actually, I cut to come find you, Kisara, "Alec responded. Pulling off the ratty backpack he had on, Alec unzipped it and stuffed his hand inside. "You may have seen them already, but my mom had them lying around, and I thought you'd want to know." Alec found what he was looking for and pulled it out.

"You came to find her to show her gossip-rags?" Seto sneered.

Alec narrowed his hazel eyes behind his chunky glasses. "Just look at them." He handed one to Seto and the others to Kisara.

'KAIBA AND BELIKOVA TOGETHER: HAVE BITTER RIVALS TURNED AMOROUS LOVERS?' was the title that screamed across the front of the tabloid Seto held. Below was a picture of Seto and Kisara standing at the front of the school Kisara's second day in Domino. It captured the precise moment Seto had been rubbing his thumb over Kisara's earring. More pictures of Seto and Kisara's evolving romance were promised inside.

_Only Pegasus was supposed to see that,_ was all Seto could think for a moment. It took all his effort not to crush the publication and hurl it into the next garbage can.

"Oh, gods," he heard Kisara breathe beside him. Looking over, Seto saw a cheap music-oriented magazine that drew in people that month with the announcement: 'KAT BELVSKY + SETO KAIBA = NEW LOVE SONG ALBUM? FIND OUT INSIDE THIS EDITION!' Another picture of Seto and Kisara at school was featured.

Noticing the date, Seto saw that most of the publications were weeks old. The oldest one had been issued two days after Kisara had arrived.

"This was has the most lies in it, I'm pretty sure," Alec said, tugging one out from the bottom of the stack. It had what must have been a photo shop job on the front that had Kisara and Meg, of all people, posing together as friends. 'FRIEND OF KITTY BELIKOVA REVEALS ALL! KITTY'S REASONS FOR LEAVING RUSSIA, HER TROUBLED HOMELIFE, AND MORE INSIDE!'

"Nice job, Meg," Seto had to concede. She'd used the little knowledge she'd gained of Seto's personal life (he refused to so much as glance at the tabloids normally, especially the ones that involved him) when they'd been dating and used it to go behind his back and hurt Kisara with seemingly no threat of being found out. But she'd pay for it now that Seto had learned of what she'd done.

"These are only the ones my mom had, so I'm not sure, but there's probably a bunch of others.." Alec tentatively offered. "Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, or whatever," he muttered, seeming to be uncomfortable with Kisara's continuous silence.

Kisara switched to another tabloid, this one shouting, 'ANOTHER CELEBRITY CORRUPTED: THE _REAL_ REASONS KISARA LEFT RUSSIA."

"It's not your fault," Seto found himself brusquely reassuring the other boy for Kisara, fairly sure she wouldn't want the kid beating himself up.

Alec raised a brow at Kaiba, but didn't comment at the unexpected show of kindness. "I really need to get back to class… I'll see you in Art, Kitty?"

"Um, yes. Yes, I'll be there," she answered distantly, moving on to another batch of lies and exaggerations, this one saying: 'PUBLIC SCRUTINY AND ABUSE DRIVES BELIKOVA FROM HER HOMELAND.' "Is it okay if I keep these until then?"

"Yeah, that's fine…See you later." Alec turned away and headed for his class, turning back a couple of times with a semi-lost look on his face.

"…We have to talk about this," Kisara eventually said, looking up at him.

* * *

Seto and Kisara were still talking about the tabloids as he was walking her to her French class after a disastrous psychology class with Mr. Bronze.

"At least we know now why the press hasn't been bothering you. They've gotten all the information they want from other sources."

"Other _untrustworthy _sources. And doesn't that just make _everything_ better knowing that?" Kisara replied with glum sarcasm. She sighed heavily. "I've said I'm sorry for dragging you into this, right?"

"Multiple times, yes. It's as annoying as when you were compulsively thanking me. Stop it."

Kisara offered a twitch of a smile before looking at the tabloids that she'd been able to extend the deadline when it came to keeping them in her possession until tomorrow.

"The fact that we haven't seen any of the paparazzi is disturbing," Seto commented. "Let me see those tabloids."

She handed them over. "What are you going to do with them?"

"I'll get them back to you before you have to give them to your seedy little friend tomorrow. I'll have my people make a list of the titles and then contact them. They'll have instructions to put the fear of a lawsuit into their hearts should they accept any more photos of us, especially on school property, and I'll also order them to do their best to get the names of the people taking the pictures." They were high quality shots, Seto had to admit, not something taken on a cell phone. The best paparazzi in town were probably all over this story. Whatever that story actually _was_ besides two teenagers going to high school.

"Alec is not seedy," Kisara defended narrowing her blue eyes at him. Seto didn't respond. "…Not that I don't have faith in you, but what if your people _don't_ put the fear of a lawsuit into these guys?"

"Then you and I had better get used to seeing more of these."

"Shit," Kisara murmured in self-pity, without much force behind it.

"Shouldn't you be getting ready for French?" Seto asked, feeling maliciously playful all of a sudden. She turned to him with a frown.

"Fine, _merde_. Happy?" she snapped, pouting.

"There, don't you feel better now?" he ribbed.

"_Va te faire foutre_," she muttered.

"_Je sais comment jurer dans le français_, Kisara," Seto informed her with a smirk. Kisara couldn't help but grin.

"Don't most people?" she teased back, bumping him with her shoulder.

"Oh. My. Gods," they heard from behind them. They stopped and turned to look at what was making the commotion. Standing there was Duke and Tristan with Joey at the forefront. "Were… were you two _flirting_? I mean, Kitty, were you flirting with _Kaiba? Kaiba?_ Oh_, _my_ gods!_" Joey was practically screaming. The very idea that _anyone_ would be attracted to Kaiba was insane and _disgusting_ to him.

"Just ignore him, Kisara," Seto said, turning her with him, away from Joey.

"Is he, you know, okay?" Kisara asked once they were a ways away, looking back and wincing a bit at the flabbergasted and repulsed expression still on Joey's face.

"No. And you'll be late to French if I have to detail to you all the ways in which Wheeler is not "okay"," Seto warned her as they made their way to Madame le Fevre's room.

"Understood." After a moment they both smiled roguishly at one another, Kisara slightly blushing.

"Though, one must wonder if Wheeler would consider cussing in French to be "flirting"," Seto mused sarcastically. Kisara giggled, but got slightly serious after a moment.

"I think we just gave some credence to what those tabloids were saying," she remarked, looking up at him with a brow raised.

He looked down at her with a raised brow of his own. "If we flirted for the next thousand years, we'd still never be able to meet the standards that those magazines have set for us," he rejoined.

Kisara smiled and they walked on.

They reached the French room. "I'll see you in fifty minutes," Seto said, already walking off, knowing that he was going to be tardy, not that Mr. Johnston would dare mark him as such. He really was getting as bad as Alec.

"Bye, Seto," he heard Kisara barely breathe behind him. For some reason, the sound made a shiver travel up his spine. He didn't know if he liked it or if it put him on edge.

* * *

"All classes report to the auditorium for an all-school assembly," the monotonous voice of the school secretary announced over the loudspeaker. "All classes report to the auditorium_._"

"Oh, well, then, I'll just have you grade these tomorrow," Mr. Johnston awkwardly stated, uncomfortable with the look of incredulous displeasure on Kaiba's face from being the one ordered around rather than vice versa. Again Seto had been doing the teacher's work for him. _Lazy, out-of-shape mathlete_.

"Tomorrow, then," Seto ground out as he stood and settled his shoulder-bag on his tall frame.

"Yes, tomorrow. Goodbye, Kaiba." Mr. Johnston hurried out of the room, leaving the securing of the room to Seto. As he left, Seto flicked off the lights and, after making sure the "teacher" had taken his keys with him, locked up the classroom.

Seto met Kisara in the hallway, having planned to intercept her on her way to the auditorium.

She looked relieved when she saw him making his way towards her through the crowd. She could have just followed the throngs of students on their way to the auditorium, her having no idea of her own as to where it was, but having someone to take her directly would be preferable.

"Looks like I caught you before those fifty minutes were up," she teased.

"I think I'm the one who caught you," Seto corrected. She laughed briefly.

"So where were we in our conversation before French class?"

"First, we were discussing the tabloids, but then we got side-tracked. And according to Wheeler, we were flirting…" Kisara bobbed her head at the memory, giving him a mischievous, _flirting_ look out of the corner of her eye. "…but I believe you'd also just told me to basically _aller se faire foutre moi_."

"So I did, not to say that you didn't say the same." Kisara shrugged. "_Me mordre_."

"_Choses que vous_."

"_Embrasse mon cul_," Kisara choked out, trying not to laugh and lose what had become a match of cussing talent.

It continued as they walked down the halls, both of them completely aware of how crass and uncivilized they were being, but needing something to distract them from their newfound discovery.

"Um, guys?" a small voice eventually asked, interrupting their verbal French sparring.

Seto and Kisara looked up and saw that they had been walking fairly closely behind Yugi Moto and all his friends.

Yugi's ears were burning bright red and he looked as if he didn't want to say anything, but…

"Could you, maybe, just _stop_ swearing? All the idiots in my French class do it all the time, and it gets pretty old—"

Yugi was cut off by Kisara bursting into laughter.

Seto looked over at her as one of her slim white hands came up to try to muffle the giddy peals. Catching him watching her with his forehead slightly creasing, she asked, "Well, isn't it cute? I mean, he's calling us idiots because _nous_ _jurer en français_. It's adorable!"

"More like insulting," Seto muttered, fixing a glare on his minute rival.

Yugi's entire face was now flaming red.

"No, no! I didn't mean to be, well, _mean_, but…but…"

Kisara snorted, trying to hold her laughter in, and even Seto managed a smirk at Yugi's expense.

"We're not trying to be mean either," Kisara quickly said, not wanting to offend their new source of entertainment and diversion.

"Speak for yourself," Seto said, not bothering to hide the contempt in his voice. Kisara elbowed him in the ribs, causing him to grunt in discomfort.

"We'll stop now," Kisara promised. "After all, there are only so many times you can tell someone to… never mind."

"Uh, okay, thank you." Yugi turned back around and caught up with his friends that hadn't noticed he'd fallen behind.

"Now that he's gone, can we start using the "bad words" again?" Seto asked once Yugi was out of earshot.

Kisara giggled. "We could, but I really did mean it when I said that there are only so many cuss words that can be used in only so many ways."

"We'd just have to get inventive."

Kisara chuckled. "_Tu es un âne._"

"_Oui, oui, mais_—"

Suddenly, someone walked into Seto's path as they neared the door to the auditorium. Mrs. Scott, the school secretary and source of the voice over the loudspeaker had stumblingly crashed into Seto before falling down on her knees in front of him.

"Oh my, oh my," she mumbled, getting up immediately without assistance and brushing off the front of her knee-length skirt. Upon looking to see who she'd bumped into, Mrs. Scott nervously took a step back and her brown eyes began to dart around fretfully. Seto just seemed to have that affect on secretaries, even ones that weren't his. Which reminded him…

"Mr. Kaiba," Mrs. Scott suddenly addressed. "Since you're here, I guess I'll just tell you myself that you have detention after school," she bluntly informed him.

"What?" Seto asked flatly.

"It's understood that you have to leave classes occasionally to tend to your business, but your recent array of tardiness and multiple absences require you to make up for them with at least one detention." Flicking her eyes up and down Seto's outfit and then over to Kisara and back, she added, "The lack of uniform will be overlooked for now for you both." Mrs. Scott immediately turned around and scuttled away. For someone working at a school, she wasn't a very socially attuned person.

Seto felt his jaw drop open and stay that way.

"So much for your school contributions and above-average academics, Seto," Kisara said beside him, a hint of laughter in her voice.

Seto quickly fastened his cobalt eyes onto her, almost about to lash out angrily. But, she was having such a hard time not laughing, and not seemingly _at_ him, that Seto felt the need to rashly attack someone or something fade… to be replaced by the thought that had emerged upon first seeing the new secretary.

They entered the auditorium, following the flow of students to the stands.

"What's the matter, Seto?" Kisara asked, seeing him frowning, not thinking that it was about the detention.

"It's nothing that you can help with," Seto replied.

"Try me," Kisara invited as they began climbing up the bleachers.

"I don't suppose you have any experience as secretary?"

"No," she said, shaking her head and chuckling as they sat down near the top.

"I didn't think so. You probably wouldn't even know your way around the building," Seto bitterly stated.

"No, I wouldn't. Other than dueling you, I haven't had any affiliation or contact with Kaiba Corp. at all."

Seto's eyebrows crunched and he looked over at her. "You haven't used anything made by Kaiba Corp.? Not one of our holographic platforms or a Duel Disk?"

"No." She had a slightly sheepish blush on her fair cheeks. "In Russia we've just skipped over the platforms you made and immediately progressed to using the Disks. But that wasn't until after I retired."

"You've never used one of my Duel Disks."

"Don't hate me for it." Kisara began to fidget, uncomfortable at Seto's almost uncomprehending gaze.

"I don't… Actually, this is perfect," he murmured, a devious light starting to flare in Seto's eyes.

"I do _not_ like that look you're getting Seto," Kisara joked, unsure if she didn't actually mean it.

"You might not be secretary material, but I think I have another job you could do." Seto leaned close to her.

Kisara lifted her chin and raised an eyebrow, not quite trusting him and his scheming, but interested in what he had to say.

"The new model of Duel Disks needs testing by competent duelists, and having someone who hasn't even used the original Duel Disk to give input would be infinitely valuable."

"You look like you're about to snatch me up and imprison me in some dragon-guarded tower so that I'll have no choice but to do your bidding, Seto," Kisara wryly informed him. "I'm going to have to grow out my hair even longer if I accept this offer."

"Being Rapunzel pays well," Seto tempted.

"You need a better form of motivation than that, Seto Kaiba," Kisara warned, wondering how long he'd persist and whether she wanted to return to the world of Duel Monsters, even in the capacity of a mere product tester.

"You'll get to see my brother," he offered, annoyed, already exasperated. He wasn't used to trying to convince people to work for him; they were always trying to convince _him_ that they could work for him. Any other person would jump at the mention of money. Any other person would jump at the mere chance to work at Kaiba Corp.!

_This is why you should never work with rich, famous people. There's nothing you can offer them. _

Kisara laughed but shook her head. How much had she laughed that day? Even despite the tabloids. "Not tempting enough, no offense meant to your little brother."

Seto glared at her, but didn't push the subject any more… yet. The new perspective she could bring by bring ignorant of the current Kaiba Corp. holograms could be _invaluable_. Now, though, he had to convince her that she wanted to share her perspective. There was no way he was going to let her get away.

_Not this time._

* * *

The assembly lasted to the end of the school day, and Kisara parted with Seto when it finished, having a hard time not laughing at him as he headed off to detention. She knew he wouldn't have appreciated it.

As she was walking to her bus stop (she was determined not to miss it this time) she felt a vibrating in her backpack, her cell phone. Slinging it off, she hoped that the call wouldn't take too long. Even more so, though, she hoped that maybe Seto had found a way to sneak a call to her, them having exchanged numbers a few weeks before.

It wasn't Seto. It was her father.

"Hello, Ivan," she said swiftly. She gave up calling him 'Daddy' a while ago.

"Kitty," Ivan replied, sounding a lot like his loony cousin, Pegasus.

"What do you want?" Kisara asked, feeling her arms wrap around herself, trying to protect her.

"You haven't called me at all, sweetie. I called Viktoria, and your mother told me that you've called her plenty of times."

"Well, Mom didn't try to keep me in Russia, now did she?" Kisara spat back.

Ivan carried on as if she'd said nothing, Russian accent burring along. "So rather than find out anything from _you_, I hear it through the tabloids."

Kisara didn't say anything, her eyes squeezing shut and her face paling even further.

"You know what they're saying, daughter mine? They're saying _a lot_ about you… and _Kaiba_. Can you elaborate on what they're saying?"

"Don't believe everything you read," she said quietly.

"It's not only what I read, but also what I hear from people whom I know to be telling me the truth. _How dare you!_" he suddenly screamed at her through the phone.

"It's none of your business," she hissed, eyes flaring.

"As a matter of fact it _is_. I am your father, you see. And even though you forced my hand when it came to your emancipation, no one, not even the executors at the banks you use, who are very well aware of who I am and the influence I carry, would deny a worried father who's concerned about his obviously troubled daughter."

"I'm _not_ troubled."

"According to the tabloids you are. Tell me, Kitty, how exactly are you going to survive in America without any funds available to you? Hmm? You just might have to come home." He was _so_ smug and _so_ self-confident. _That bastard_.

Wait…

'_Being Rapunzel pays good money…'_

"Or I just might have to get a job."

* * *

It was hard to believe that Seto had actually been asked to stay behind. He practically _owned_ the school with all the donations he'd given it to try to boost his own educational experience. _That_ had failed, but how dare they give him detention? _Of course_ he missed school a lot; he ran a multi-_billion_, international corporation, a full-time job for almost everyone else in the entire world.

The faculty had _said_ they understood that, but they obviously did not.

Seto ran his hand over his face, trying to calm his anger. Detention hadn't been that bad. He'd exchanged ironic nods with Alec before sitting down and doing the little work he had with him, but then the principal had come in just before detention was out and had had a long chat with him in regards to why they had to enforce the detention and how the school really did appreciate the money Seto gave them and, now that he'd brought it up, the school could still use a little more…

With a sigh, he pulled out his cell phone from his pants pocket and began dialing. Roland knew about the change in schedule, but there had been some car trouble anyway with the Town Car. It had better be fixed by now.

The call went through, and Seto was brought up on the situation. The car still wasn't working, and Seto's temper was already on a short fuse. After laying into Roland briefly and calling his brother to let him know what was going on, he went to the front of the school to wait for whenever a car could be sent for him.

There was a low brick wall out front that he could use as a seat, but someone was already there.

Kisara.

"Why are you here?" he asked, walking over to her.

"I was bored." She shrugged, smiling as she caught sight of him.

"You missed your bus." He stood in front of her.

Kisara sighed. "Yes, I'm afraid I did. Missing the bus three times in one day must be a record."

"One world record isn't enough for you?" Seto teased, sitting down beside her. "How long have you been waiting out here, and why didn't you just wait for the next bus?" he asked.

"Just a couple of hours, and the route that I specifically needed only runs at certain times every day, and I missed the last one," she answered.

"How?"

"I got a phone call." She left it at that.

"How did you know I was still here and hadn't skipped detention and left while you were missing your last-chance bus?"

"I knew."

Seto looked at her narrowly out of the corner of his eye. "Uh huh… I suppose you're expecting me to offer you a ride home."

She smiled over at him. "If you wouldn't mind. Anyway, it's on your way to Kaiba Corp. this time, so I don't feel too guilty for imposing."

"I'm going home actually, not to KC. But I'll give you a ride anyway, though you should know that we're going to have to be waiting a while."

Kisara nodded. "That's okay… I've decided to take you up on your job offer, if it's still on the table," Kisara stated suddenly.

"Of course it's still on the table," he said, a little caught off guard. _I thought it would take more to convince her._

"Good, because it turns out I'm going to be needing it."

**Thank you for reading! I admit that the theme of swearing in French may have gotten out of hand, but it was fun to write in any case, and, as I said, this was sort of a filler chapter. The next chapter is going to have a **_**lot**_** more plot-relevant material.**

**Because ****The Kaiba Heir**** owns my soul for now I don't know when the next chapter of this fic will be uploaded. Again, thank you to those who've waited for so long to get this chapter. I hope you'll still be willing to wait for the next one.**


	9. iDuel

**One would think, now that ****The Kaiba Heir**** is finished and summer is here, that I'd have gotten back to this fic as quickly as possible. One would be wrong. There is an excuse, many excuses, for it, but I won't take up your time with them here. If you'd like to know my reasons, I've started a blog (the link is in my profile and also listed as my homepage) to address hold-ups such as this, as well as other things to do with my fanfiction on each of my three accounts. **

Pegasus was back in Russia again, waiting for Ivan to finally grace him with his presence. Until then, Pegasus had the company of the boy who had been in the basement the last time he'd visited. "Temnyĭ Mag" was staring at the wall above Pegasus's head, his aquamarine eyes glazed over and unfocused. For a moment, Pegasus wondered if the teenager was drugged. If so, he might as well have some fun with him... it.

"So, _Temnyĭ Mag_, why exactly are you here? More importantly, how much are you being paid? I bet I could double it," Pegasus tried to tempt, thinking that it just might be a good idea to get him on the payroll if he were so important.

The boy didn't respond for a few moments, but finally shook his head slowly.

"Oh, come now." Pegasus pouted. "I have affiliations with Kaiba Corp., so you know I have to be rich for that if nothing else."

Again the brat shook his head. Pegasus sighed, giving up. Now he would need to find something else to distract him. He began to tap and jiggle his foot.

"I am not paid."

Pegasus jumped. It speaks! And it didn't sound drugged, just bored. "Oh? Do tell."

"I work for the privilege of it, not for the money. It's my duty to do what the Collectors ask of me." The boy suddenly sat up a little straighter. "She needs to be taken care of before she ruins everything again."

Pegasus's foot stilled. "You do realize that you're talking about my goddaughter whom I adore." The threat was more than evident in his tone.

"Yes. But even if you somehow stop _me_—" an arrogant smile twitched across his face "—Ivan has more than enough devotion to the cause to finish that I hope to at the very least start."

"My cousin doesn't want his daughter "taken care of." He just wants her home where he can keep her under his thumb," Pegasus harshly corrected.

Temnyĭ Mag finally laid his eyes upon Pegasus, making the godfather feel very small. "Containment is the idyllic goal. But we all, Ivan included, know that nothing short of extermination may be what is required in the end for the Siniĭ Glaza Belyĭ Drakon."

* * *

Kisara walked into the Kaiba Corp. building late Saturday afternoon and muttered quietly to herself, "_Shiny._"

Everything was gleaming chrome or polished granite or flashing glass. It was dazzling in a professional and _cool_ way.

Kisara took a step back without looking, intending to turn and go find someone to direct her to wherever it was that she was to officially apply for the job of test duelist. She wound up smacking into someone and tumbling down with them, papers flying everywhere.

"Oops, um—"

"Oh, gods. Mr. Kaiba is going to kill me," the other woman muttered, scrambling for the still-aloft papers.

"Oh?" Kisara asked, grabbing some of the papers herself.

The woman chuckled hoarsely, sounding on the verge of crying. "You're in the Kaiba Corp. building and you don't know about Mr. Kaiba's temper? Leave now, sweetheart," she warned.

Kisara dug in her bag and pulled out a letter, showing it to the woman. "Maybe you could help me out? I'm here for the job—"

"What? You are _so_ late!"

"But he said—" Kisara tried to defend.

"No! No, no. Ah, gods, you need to come with me right now." The woman snagged Kisara's arm and started to drag her along. "I always knew Mr. Kaiba would kill me before he found my replacement, but who knew the replacement would be the one to bring my death about," Kaiba's secretary muttered to herself.

Just a few minutes later, Kisara was entering Seto's office on her own, catching him as he was bent over a bevy of files and scowling at them with all his might.

"Uh, hey."

Seto looked up, the look on his face turning from angry to slightly, though pleasantly, surprised. _Kisara._

"I thought you said you didn't want to be a secretary," he commented as she walked further into the office. That had been his project for the day: finding his next secretary. So far he'd had twenty varieties of sluts, a smart but light-fearing, vampire-obsessed young man, and someone who'd been his secretary in the past and wanted another go. Seto had called that last one insane before telling her to get the hell out. At this moment, Seto was leaning towards the goth boy.

"I don't, trust me. Especially not after seeing that poor, overworked, haggard woman in the hallway. What did you do to her, Seto?"

"I gave her a job." Seto was aware of his reputation for being an ogre of a boss, but he figured that if you didn't want someone breathing down your back all day, you should be self-employed. That way you wouldn't be wasting your ogre-boss's time.

Kisara took a seat in front of his desk and gave him a look.

"Maybe I should reconsider working here if I'm going to end up like _that_."

_That_ walked in the door then, trembling.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Kaiba, but I can't find Ms. Belikova's file for the job interview."

"No, please, _I'm_ sorry," Kisara started, twisting around in her chair to look at the ragged woman. "I'm not here for the secretarial job. I should have made that clear. But you kind of didn't let me."

"She's here to apply as a KC duelist," Seto said brusquely, annoyed at being interrupted.

"My apologies, s-sir. I should have asked and sent her down to the ninth floor to apply. She just had a letter like the others, and I thought—"

"I _know_. Just—"

"Be nice, Seto."

The secretary stared in astonishment, her mouth agape, as hell froze over. Seto didn't bite Kisara's head off, though he did focus his gaze on her a little too sharply. When Seto flicked his eyes to the secretary, she jumped a little.

"Uh, um, shall… Shall I take her t-to the n-ninth floor, sir?"

"No… thank you. But bring the forms she needs up here, _if you would_." Seto didn't take his eyes off of Kisara as he ground out the half-hearted pleasantries.

"Yes, sir… uh, right away." She scurried out.

Kisara silently clapped her hands in acknowledgement of Seto's attempted civility.

"I think I pulled a muscle or something," Seto muttered darkly, glaring at her. Kisara laughed and settled herself into her seat.

"So what are these forms for?" Kisara didn't think there would be that many, but it wasn't sounding that way.

"Most of them are waivers that say Kaiba Corporation won't be held liable should some sort of harm befall you. The others are just basic things asking for your contact information and, you know, a physical description in case we find it hard to identify you after what we're exempt from in the waivers happens."

Kisara's eyes were wide and about to pop from her head. "This had better be your idea of a joke, Seto Kaiba, or I'm not working here."

"If you're not willing to give it your all, then maybe you shouldn't work here," Seto mercilessly continued.

"You're making it sound as if I'm heading for the morgue the moment I sign these forms."

Seto smiled a little to himself and Kisara relaxed. "It's not that bad. But stuff can happen in the test blocks. Kaiba Corp. has caused more power outages than any other single source in Domino's history. Block 3 is especially known for the almost constant static electricity. Occasionally it can get out of hand and people end up with burns and the rare scar. Nothing too bad. Remember when my arm was hurting a few weeks ago? That came about from a different technical difficulty, of which there are many."

"So "beware?""

"Yeah. Make sure that you actually look over the forms and realize what they're saying."

Kisara nodded thoughtfully. "Okay. Bring it on."

* * *

Two hours later, Kisara was still looking through forms and getting more and more freaked out every time she signed on the dotted line.

The soon-to-be ex-secretary had escorted her down a series of hallways on the same floor and into a little break room. She'd been carrying an armful of paperwork that Kisara had figured she would be spreading out as they went along, but no. They were _all_ for Kisara.

And they _all_ seemed to involve Kisara promising not to sue should something atrocious happen to her. It was all very disconcerting, but she didn't think that Seto would offer her any sort of position that would put her at risk.

She was still a little nervous, though, when Mokuba came in.

"Oh. Hey! You're Ki-Ki—"

"Kitty," Kisara offered with a stiff smile.

"No. Ki-Kisara! There. I can say it," Mokuba said on a laugh. "It's so awesome to meet you. I'm Mokuba."

Kisara had a genuine grin on her face as she took the hand that he stuck out at her. "It's great to meet you, too. I was curious what Seto's little brother would be like."

"Yeah. I can't say that I'm that much of a Kaiba," Mokuba admitted, rubbing the back of his head.

Kisara's eyes crinkled as her grin broadened. "Seto's enough Kaiba all on his own. I wouldn't worry about it."

"I don't that much anymore." Mokuba sat down at the break room table with her. "I can't believe he's making you fill out all of this. I thought he might give his friend a break, but apparently he's as nitpicky with you as he is with everyone else." Mokuba grabbed one of the forms from the top of Kisara's 'finished' pile, one that had something to do with hair loss due to it catching on fire. It had made Kisara's pet her white locks protectively after she'd read through it.

Mokuba snorted as he read through it. "This is such bull."

"So no one's actually had their hair set on fire?" Kisara asked, looking for some reassurance.

"Well, one guy did. He'd been working for about three days straight, but he wasn't even a duelist, so I wouldn't worry about it for what you're applying for." Mokuba put the form down and smiled over at Kisara.

_Okaaay. So, someone _had_ been set on fire…_

"How much time do you spend here at Kaiba Corp., Mokuba?" she queried, doubting that a thirteen-year-old would prefer to spend his time at work on a Saturday. Kisara was seventeen and she was definitely starting to tire of it. But then again it didn't look like Mokuba had a mountain of paper work to do that seemed to threaten his life with each signature.

"I come here almost every day after school, just like Seto. I don't have that many responsibilities yet within the company, but I figured I should get used to it now so that I can help take the burden off of Seto sooner rather than later."

"That's sweet," Kisara commented, causing the younger Kaiba brother to blush.

He cleared his throat before talking again. "I'm meeting someone here today in about ten minutes, actually."

_Run while you can_, Kisara thought, thinking that the secretary had told her about leaving now was good advice, if for different reasons. But since Mokuba spent so much time here already, he probably knew to enjoy the time away already and take every chance to make sure that time came about.

"I'm meeting a friend, Serenity Wheeler. She says you've met a few times at school."

Kisara had to think for a minute. The only person she could really think of when it came to people she knew at school was Seto. "Oh, right, we have. On my first day I think she was the one who dropped her book bag?" Mokuba nodded. "And she and another girl comforted me in the bathroom after I had Gatorade poured on me and my pin and jacket were stolen. I suppose you've heard about that."

Mokuba winced, but nodded once more. "Yeah. You also drew a picture of her brother, Joey."

"I didn't know they were siblings."

"Yeah, but just looking at Seto and me, it can be hard to tell when two people are related," he said, trying to laugh at himself again. It seemed that he was still very mindful of the differences between himself and his brother, despite what he said.

"Anyway, Serenity thinks you're nice," Mokuba went on. "If a little distant."

It was Kisara's turn to blush. "I have been told that I can be a bit aloof sometimes. But it was kind of her to say that I was nice, anyway."

Mokuba looked at her appraisingly. "I don't think you're that aloof. But I have Seto to compare you against. Anyway, with all the stuff that you have done, you must have a lot of people who are after you, like paparazzi or obsessed fans. Seto's just a duelist and he has loopy fans and intrusive reporters abounding."

"Hmm."

"…Seto said you don't like talking about your past or the "people" you've been, but… I was wondering if you could do me a favor."

"Like what?" This was intriguing. Even if he wasn't much of one, Mokuba was still a Kaiba and he could probably get any number of people to do him favors. What could he need from her?

"I know it's really presumptuous to ask someone you just met to do something for you, but with everything that Serenity and Seto have told me, it's hard not to be all overly friendly, you know?" Kisara nodded, mentally noting how adorable he was. "Anyway, with Kat and Kassi, you were a singer and musician respectively. Could you recommend some songs to put on my brother's iPod?"

Kisara burst out laughing. That was not the favor that she'd been expecting Mokuba to ask.

Mokuba's face was bright red, but he continued on, pointing out how Kisara spent more time with Seto now than he did anyway and that she would have a better ear for music than anyone else Mokuba knew personally. "Anyway," he finished up, "Serenity' listened to a bunch of your stuff, and she thinks that you're good. So could you suggest some stuff? I gave the iPod to my brother last Christmas, but he hasn't even touched it, and he always uses the excuse that he doesn't have time to look up and download songs onto it."

Kisara chewed her bottom lip for a second. "Okay. But how about you give me Seto's iPod and I can just put the songs on myself rather than rattling off a bunch of nonsensical titles."

"Cool! I'll get the iPod to you the next time you come in." Looking up at the clock, Mokuba started a little and stood up. "I've got to go now, but…" A darkly mischievous look came into his eyes as he swept them across Kisara and her mounds of paperwork. "But first I think I'll go tell Seto that you are already aware of the disturbing work conditions that employees of Kaiba Corp. are put in, and you don't seem to be liking it."

Kisara felt her eyes narrowing and her nose twisting a little bit at his words. "No, I'm not liking it," she reiterated. "Not one bit."

* * *

Yugi was sitting on a bench in one of Domino's parks, just thinking as he mindlessly shuffled his deck. He and the gang had been hanging out together and Joey had inevitably decided that a duel was necessary to add some excitement to the day. They'd actually ended up drawing a slight crowd even though they were only dueling for fun and without any holograms.

Yugi had to admit that he'd had an unfair advantage over Joey once Serenity had started talking about how she'd spent the day with Mokuba. The older brother had made an effort, but it was obvious that his little sister spending time with Kaiba's younger brother disturbed him on many different levels. It didn't help that Joey had annoyed Tea earlier that day and she'd gotten back at him by talking with Serenity about how good a boyfriend Mokuba could be.

After the duel, Joey and Tea had wound up in a huge fight with Tristan and Duke egging them on and Bakura watching silently with a mildly amused look on his face. This had given Yugi and Serenity a chance to talk.

Apparently Kisara was at Kaiba Corp., doing something that Mokuba hadn't been allowed to talk about, though he had mentioned that she was probably hating his brother's guts right about now.

Then Serenity had wondered aloud if _Kaiba_ was the good boyfriend-type, which had just about caused Joey to have an aneurism when he'd heard. Serenity had then explained that she'd meant that Kisara and Kaiba looked to be getting closer and closer all the time, and that she thought it might be heading somewhere. Joey had still looked fairly sick to his stomach.

No one in their group had spoken again about the odd coincidence that Kisara looked an awful lot like the Blue-Eyes or that she had a song called "Shadow Games" on one of her albums. What could they do about it anyway?

The others had left a while after that, but Yugi had decided to stay behind and see if he _could_ think up something that could be done. Yami hadn't been much help. He was trying just as hard as Yugi was, but hadn't had any luck either as he muttered to himself and paced within the Millennium Puzzle.

So, essentially, Yugi was alone in the park when Pegasus came and sat down on the bench beside him.

"Yugi-boy!" Pegasus exuberantly greeted.

"Pegasus!" Yugi had shouted back, but in terror rather than excitement.

"It's so nice to see you too, Yugi," Pegasus had gone on, seeming completely unaware of Yugi's shock and panic. "You and your grampa always give such wholehearted greetings." Maybe he wasn't quite so unaware.

"I just wanted to ask you a few questions, if you wouldn't mind," Pegasus said in a cloying voice.

Yugi slid a little down the bench, away from the pompous gamer. "Uh… alright."

_Yami? Are you there?_

_Yes, I am. _

_Good. Could you watch him with me?_

_Of course._

_Thanks._

"Marvelous. So the first thing I need to ask you to do is," Pegasus pulled an envelope from his inner breast pocket, "could you please deliver this to your grampa? But, no peeking." Pegasus wagged his finger at Yugi as he handed the envelope over.

"Yeah, okay," Yugi muttered, frowning in confusion that was tinged with suspicion at the article.

_Do you think he might have a trap in it or something, Yami?_

_No. I don't sense anything, and he doesn't have the Millennium Eye anyways, so there couldn't be anything too sinister involved. _

_That's true._

"And there's just two more things I need to ask of you." Pegasus's visible eye seemed to twitch momentarily before he held up two fingers and then pulled one down. "The first, how much time is my lovely goddaughter spending with dear Kaiba-boy?"

Yugi blinked. He should have figured that Pegasus would want some information on Kisara, but if felt weird to be treated like an informant.

"Actually… she's over at Kaiba Corp. right now," Yugi admitted. "They spend every day at school together. I wouldn't know much about outside of school except for today."

"Hmm. Alright, one more question…" Pegasus reached into his pants pocket, and, for a moment, Yugi thought that the man was about to pull a gun on him for giving him an answer that his face showed he was obviously displeased with. But it wasn't a gun… it was a jewelry box.

Pegasus flipped it open to review a silver necklace with a snowflake-shaped diamond pendant. "Do you think my sweet Kitty would like this? She's from Russia, you know, and I think she just might be missing the snow." Pegasus smiled, pleased with himself for rhyming.

"Um, sure. I don't see why she wouldn't."

_I think he just might be bipolar, _Yugi commented.

Yami chuckled and agreed.

"Wonderful. Bye-bye now, Yugi-boy!" Pegasus stood up and began to saunter away. But before he'd gone too far, he stopped, and turned to look Yugi in the eye with a more serious expression than Yugi thought he'd ever seen on Pegasus's face.

"There is one more thing. It's not a question so much as a word to the wise, if you'll listen."

After a moment, Yugi nodded.

"Don't trust any newcomers, Yugi Moto. They could be quite dangerous to your health as well as others'."

Yugi watched with wide eyes as Pegasus turned once more and walked (practically skipped) back to his ostentatious Cadillac.

'_Don't trust any newcomers.'_

_Even though she's been here for almost two months,_ Yugi thought, _does that include Kisara?_

* * *

"You didn't put any of your songs on here," Seto stated, standing behind Kisara at her locker, tapping his thumb a couple of times against the silver iPod. Seto had noticed the period before when he was TA-ing in Mr. Johnston's math class. Just to toy with the teacher, Seto had kept inching the iPod's volume up each time Mr. Johnston had tried to hint that iPods weren't allowed in school. It got to the point that timid Mr. Johnston was having to yell to be heard by his aide and the whole class was snickering behind his back.

Ever since Kisara had given the loaded iPod back to Mokuba who had given back to Seto with an explanation as to what had been done to it, Seto hadn't put it down for longer than the short time it took to charge it.

He didn't particularly care for music in itself, but Kisara had chosen these songs for a reason, and it was interesting to hear what she thought of him. A lot of the songs were angry, but even more were about an inability to connect with others for one reason or another. Seto thought that was somewhat ludicrous considering that he'd been able to bond with Kisara more than anyone else in his entire life besides Mokuba.

"I'm not sure if you would like them. They're pretty light a lot of the time, not your sort of thing," she answered, closing her locker and turning around, brushing a strand of white hair out of her eyes that immediately fell back into place. "Anyway, I didn't want to seem conceited."

"I'd like to hear some of your stuff," Seto persisted, tapping his thumb again to the beat of a song he had playing quietly in the background.

Kisara chewed on her lip.

"Hey." Kisara looked up at him, watching as he turned off the iPod and pulled out his earbuds. "I'm not going to forget that you're Kisara, even if I do listen to Kat Belvsky." He was completely serious as he looked her in the eye.

Kisara's shoulders slumped in silent relief, and Seto watched in wonder as he brought Kisara's first smile of the day to her lips.

"Alright." She held her hand out and he placed his iPod in it. "I'll get it back to you tomorrow with some songs of mine that you might like."

"I want _all_ of your songs, Kisara, even the ones from Ki[Sara]," he told her.

Kisara pursed her lips for a moment, disliking even a mention of that band, but she agreed.

As they walked to Chem, he heard Kisara almost speak.

Looking over, he saw her faintly blushing, which was a lot for her pale complexion, and clasping her hands in front of her, around the iPod.

"Um… Do you remember my first day, when Ms. Liddy let all those kids ask their questions and stuff?"

He nodded. Of course, he remembered. She was acting just as shy and nervous right now as she had really been back then.

"Well, Paisley," Seto scowled as she mentioned that name, "asked me if I was here for a recording contract, and I said yes… Things were postponed for a while, but they're picking up again."

Seto's eyes narrowed a bit. "Are you trying to tell me that you won't be able to duel for me after all?" he asked slowly, emotionlessly.

Kisara shook her head. "No, that's not what I'm saying." Now, it was Seto's turn to relax. "But…tomorrow is the first recording. Uncle Peggy was originally going to be there, but he's gone on business again. And Mokuba," a sudden mischievous grin came to Kisara's face before fading just as quickly, "told me that the little work you have to do tomorrow could easily be handed over to him. It's long and repetitive, but maybe you'd like to come along and hear me sing in person?"

"…Yes, I'd like that."

**Thanks for reading!**

**I'd originally planned for a different chapter to take this one's place, but I couldn't write it and I couldn't get some of the ideas to mesh with what I have planned for this story. Instead, I just skipped it and moved on to what was going to be the next chapter anyway. However, if you're interested, I do have it posted for people to read what I was able to get down, just not on this site; it's on that recently created blog that I mentioned: .com.**


	10. Over and Out

**I don't have much to say about this chapter, so let's get on with chapter ten!**

Seto sat beside Kisara trying to keep his mouth shut, but being unable to for one of the few times in his entire life.

"…So, you're really never going to—"

"Nope," Kisara cut him off. She'd been tight-lipped and brisk since the moment they'd entered the recording studio and the mood still hadn't worn off even as they were being driven back to her new place in Seto's Town Car.

"Hn," Seto responded. He felt like he was finally getting a taste of what it was like to be on the end of his own brusque, removed manners. It was quite effective.

Apparently, the recording had gone well, not that Kaiba had a head for these particular things. Everything had taken a down-hill turn, however, when she'd finished for the day and told her manager and the representative from the studio that she wasn't ever going to be creating another album after this one. Ever.

There had been screaming and shouting and fit-pitching, something Seto was used to but hadn't liked when it was directed at Kisara. Luckily for the people doing the screaming, she was able to handle herself, but Seto had still seen her becoming more and more uncomfortable in the face of so many who were against her and had ended up stepping in order to get her out of there. Kisara hadn't said much since then.

Seto had been listening to Kisara's songs the entire night before, getting a feel for what made Kisara into Kat Belvsky. It was a rather elusive connection considering how broad a spectrum the pseudonym took action in, and Seto still wasn't sure he had it completely pinned down, especially not after today.

Most of Kisara's earlier songs were of a more… almost child-like quality, reminding Seto of the preteen girls that followed their elder siblings to dueling tournaments, trying to imitate the maturity they found themselves surrounded with. This new album, on the other hand, seemed to actually have attained that maturity. It was definitely stronger than the previous four, and not in the near-desperate, in-your-face way that the one album she'd done in Ki[Sara]. It set Kisara's fans up for a more powerful, in-control Kat Belvsky. But with this being her last album, they would never fully receive what the songs encouraged them to expect. It in all ways epitomized the saying, "Leave them wanting more," a saying Seto had never really given much credence too. His own theory was more of a blow-them-out-of-the-water variety. He didn't understand what she was doing.

But he wasn't about to tell her that.

"So what did you really think?" Kisara finally asked into the dimness of the rear of the Town Car, her voice scratching a bit after a full day of using it. Maybe he didn't need to tell her if she could tell what he'd been thinking of anyway.

"I think it's going to be a huge letdown for all of the fans of Kat Belvsky when they don't see anything after this final album," he told her truthfully, not holding back any punches.

His differentiating between herself and Kat made Kisara smile. She nodded to what he'd said.

"Other than that, I saw nothing wrong with it," he continued.

She nodded again, the smile still on her face.

He couldn't help but ask, "Why did you want me to come along?"

The grin broadened and she turned to look at him, her blue eyes gleaming even in the darkness. "I just wanted to know that there was someone in the studio that wasn't in it for profit and just wanted to see me do well. It helped knowing that there was someone on my side should I need them to be. And you were. Thanks for that," she finished.

Seto snorted quietly. "I sat there, and then I got us to leave. I don't think I deserve any shining armor or noble steed just yet."

Kisara made a lilting, dismissive sound, turning to look out through the windshield once more.

"With Kat Belvsky gone, that means that you'll have phased out every single stage name you've ever taken," Seto commented, having put a fair amount of thought into it as Kisara had sung.

Kisara didn't even blink. She must have thought about it for quite a while as well.

"…That's not quite right, actually," she eventually said, having gotten lost in thought at some point along the way.

Seto narrowed his eyes. "Oh?" Even with Kisara, he didn't like being told he was wrong.

"Thanks to you, I'm bringing Kitty Belle back from the dead, just in time for Kat to disappear." She sounded almost grudging.

"So you are," Seto agreed quietly.

Kisara slumped against the back of the seat. "It's not that bad of a thing, I guess," she relented easily enough, trying to get a smile onto her lips for show.

Seto was a little offended by Kisara's apparent lack of enthusiasm for his job offering. Any other person in the world would be willing to pay _him_ for the opportunity. Kisara was treating it like a chore.

"Mr. Kaiba? Ms. Belikova?" Roland nervously cut in from the driver's seat. "We've arrived."

He meant at Kisara's apartment. Seto had both picked her up and was now dropping her off in front of the glass-fronted, crystalline building. Just looking at its façade, it was no wonder why Kisara needed the job he'd offered her.

"Before you get out," Seto began as Kisara made for the door handle, "I need to give you something for your job tomorrow."

Leaning forward, he grabbed the briefcase that Roland handed back to him from where it had been sitting on the passenger's seat. While Roland had driven them to the studio, he had stayed outside with the car, guarding the precious briefcase.

Flipping the latches, Seto looked over at Kisara through the corner of his eye. She had her head tilted at a curious angle, reassuring Seto that she was still worthy of what he was about to give her.

Opening the lid, Seto turned it so that it was facing Kisara.

"A duel disk," she identified after a moment.

"Not just a duel disk," Seto corrected. "The next generation of duel disks. No one outside of my company is even aware that it's been developed, and I expect it to stay that way." Kisara vaguely remembered that one of the forms Seto had had her sign during her first visit to KC headquarters had mentioned basically that the full wrath of the seven circles of hell would be unleashed upon her if she even mumbled a syllable related to any of the secret projects Kaiba Corp. had going on behind the scenes that she might be privy to.

"What do you want me to do with it?" Kisara asked, doubting that he intended her to conduct one-sided duels in her apartment, but one never knew with Kaiba at the helm.

"Since you've never handed a duel disk of any kind before, I want you to spend tonight just getting used to it," Seto instructed, all business. "Mokuba put together some note cards that have basic instructions on them that are in here for you to go over."

Kisara nodded, taking in the polished black metal that watched her from inside the suitcase. It looked ready to take a bite out of her.

"No other duelists are being allowed to take these off of Kaiba Corp. premises," Seto continued. "S—"

"So don't screw this up?" Kisara supplied.

Seto nodded grimly. She may be his… _friend_. But that wouldn't stop him from razing her to the ground if she betrayed him by leaking this technology, even if it was an accident.

"Don't worry," Kisara said, seeing how fidgety he was about handing the disk over, almost like a parent dropping their kid off at daycare for the first time. She gave him a little quirk of her lips. "I'll take care of it," she promised, gently pulling the case from his fingertips, looking him in the eyes the whole time.

* * *

Kisara didn't just end up taking care of the duel disk. She ended up making it sing the next day; her first day actually practicing with it in one of the underground Testing Blocks of Kaiba Corp. She ended up losing to the machine she was facing off against, but she did so spectacularly. Every time she or the machine took out the other's monsters, she was illuminated in the blazing white of the shattering act of annihilation, the light flashing off her hair and the spiral earrings and snowflake pendant Pegasus had gifted her with.

Seto had watched the entire duel from the observation deck, and, once it was over, had rushed to her side to get her opinion of the experience while it was still fresh. He could have sworn her eyes were glowing as he'd first walked up to her. That was exactly the sort of reaction he wanted his product to evoke in those who acquired it.

They were now in the elevator going to the top floor of the Kaiba Corporation building, and Kisara had started to feel the soreness in her arm. She kept wincing as she tried to massage some feeling back into it other than pain. "What are you going to do about the arm clamp?" she asked. The disk itself was currently being examined by Seto's Testing staff that was making sure that it was holding up against the wear of such an energetic duel. So far the reports were good.

Seto sighed through his nose. The problem of the arm clamp had been reduced, but it wasn't anywhere near being solved. But, as always, Seto had a backup plan, and he saw no choice but to implement it now.

"We can't get the clamp to work on a universal level, so we're not even going to try. You'll have to go through a fitting tomorrow, and so will everyone else who tests one, and then those who actually buy one. We're also adding in some of the more complex technology we'd taken out earlier. These new duel disks are going to be more advanced than the earlier ones and consequently more expensive, but they're going to be so remarkable that only the best duelists who are capable of handling them are going to be able to get their hands on them. The disk will be customized to comfortably fit only them and other little details will be configured to make the disk completely unique to its duelist."

Seto and his people had come up with the idea of customizing the arm clamp and had then just ran with it, finding every possible way to make each duel disk special and completely original, including allowing the buyer to choose their disk's color. No one had even a bought one yet, but Kaiba Corporation already had a system in place that would eliminate any possibility of disk copy-cats.

"What if you go overboard and no duelist is able to handle them?" Kisara asked, impressed but wary.

"That's what you're here for." Seto glanced over and gave her a wolfish grin. "You and about twenty others have the privileged job of deciding what stays and what goes in the design."

"But you get the final say, right?"

"Naturally."

Kisara snorted but nodded good-naturedly.

Seto was glad to see her actually enjoying her job after her initial unwillingness and uncertainty. Having a duelist who only said 'meh' as an answer to every question asked of them in regards to the product didn't help anything. But when the duelist actually became interested in the process they were a part of, they contributed to making that product so much better than it would have been with the person who said 'meh.'

The doors opened to the top floor, and they stepped out, on their way to his office. As they walked past his secretary's desk, Seto noticed that she was absent from her post. He vaguely wondered if she'd finally broken down and couldn't take it any longer.

At the moment it didn't matter all that much. He currently only needed her to get an ice pack for Kisara's arm, but he could do that himself if he absolutely had to.

"So when do I come in next?" Kisara asked, the spark in her eyes returning, further heartening Seto's belief that he'd made a good choice by hiring Kisara.

Opening the door to his office for her, he was about to say that two days from now would be ideal in order to give his Testers time to check over the disk and to give her a chance to once again become tabula rasa, but he was interrupted before he had a chance to say anything.

"Mr. Kaiba!" his secretary practically wailed, having been waiting on the other side of the door. "They know, sir! They know, and they won't stop calling, and—"

"What do they know?" Kisara queried for Seto, who was still stunned that he'd worked his secretary so hard that phone calls had her at the breaking point.

Suddenly, the frazzled woman couldn't say anything and could merely gesticulate, shaking a hand in Kisara's general direction.

"They know that Kisara's working for me?" Seto inferred, raising an eyebrow at the antics.

The secretary nodded, her hair bobbing with the erratic movement, and was able to get out, "It's all over the news."

Looking past the secretary, Seto saw that, displayed on the screens of the television he had installed on one of the walls, were various clips and shots of himself and Kisara, alternating with each other every now and then, with a newscaster's face spaced in at odd moments.

"…While I know I wasn't supposed to talk about what I was doing here, is it really that bad that everyone knows?" Kisara asked after a moment of watching the distant screen with him.

"Did you tell anyone?" Seto heard himself distantly asked, not knowing just yet what his feelings on the subject were.

He felt the air currents shift as she shook her head. "No," she verbally rejected.

Taking in a deep breath, Seto focused on the problem, if there even was a problem, at hand.

"They keep mentioning tabloids, as well, sir," the secretary softly interjected, giving him an even bigger picture to deal with. After a while of Seto merely thinking, she asked, "Sir, what do we do?"

Finally deciding that his feelings were that of annoyance and resignation, Seto replied, "We answer in kind."

* * *

"Uh, let's see. Parlaay voo… um, frenchie?" Joey asked, or rather attempted to ask.

"_Oui. Pouvez-vous me dire comment se rendre à la gare de train?_" Yugi responded easily.

Joey blinked owlishly. "…_Non._ Dat means 'no,' right?"

"_Oui_," Yugi said again, nodding tolerantly.

"Uh huh." Joey chewed on his lower lip for a moment as he flipped through the French book he'd snagged off of Yugi's desk. Apparently, Joey had finished all of his homework (which Yugi had taken to mean that he'd done of few problems from each subject and left it at that) and decided to come over to hang out with Yugi. Since Yugi was still doing homework, primarily French, Joey had decided to help him out… sort of.

"So… wait, what did ya ask me before?" Joey asked, more confused than ever.

"I asked you if you could tell me how to get to the train station," Yugi informed, thinking it was time to remove the French textbook from Joey before he hurt himself using it.

"Oh. Yeah, I couldn't tell ya that," Joey said, relinquishing his hold on the book. "Ya'd better get someone else to study with, Yug."

"Don't worry about it." Yugi tossed the book onto his bed. They'd been sitting on the floor, and now they both stretched out their legs.

"What time is it, anyway?"

"Um." Yugi looked. "Seven thirty." Seven thirty on a Sunday night… not exactly the most exciting time of the week, especially when one was doing homework for the following Monday.

"I'd probably start headin' home," Joey supposed unenthusiastically.

"You can probably stay for dinner. Grampa won't mind."

Joey's face brightened. "That'd be great!"

_It's about time you talk to your grandfather about what Pegasus gave you,_ Yami said.

_Must I?_ Yugi asked, his face bunching unattractively.

_You ran out of excuses to keep it from him this morning_, Yami pointed out.

Yugi groaned, catching Joey's wide-eyed attention.

"What was dat?"

"Yami's making sense," Yugi muttered.

_Don't say it like it's such a rare occurrence,_ Yami jokingly complained.

"What's he makin' sense over?"

"Pegasus left me something to give to my grampa—"

"Throw it out!" Joey shouted.

"That's what I want to do. Yami doesn't think it's a good idea," Yugi defended.

_It's not,_ Yami declared as Joey simultaneously shouted, "It is! Toss it, Yugi, whatever he gave ya."

"It's not for me. It's for my grampa."

"So?"

"So it's not really mine to throw away," Yugi reasoned.

_Exactly_, Yami thought.

"But, Yugi, knowing Pegasus, your grampa might not be around to throw it out himself after he opens it. Don't give it to him," Joey practically begged.

"I don't really think I have a choice," Yugi said as he stood up and walked to his bureau. He'd kept the envelope in his sock drawer for the past day, and now he retrieved it.

"Come on, Yugi," Joey said, scrambling to his feet. When he caught sight of the envelope, he paused for a moment. "Dat's it? It doesn't look big enough to hold a curse or nothin'."

"That's what I hope," Yugi said, heading for the door. Joey followed at his heels, a frown on his face as he watched the envelope in Yugi's hand suspiciously, like it might blow up any second.

"Grampa?" Yugi called, reaching the bottom stair. The shop area of the house was dark, the open sign facing in so that everyone outside saw 'closed.' But there was a little light spilling out from under the door that led to the television room. That's where Grampa Moto's slightly muffled voice spilled from.

"In here, Yugi."

Solomon was watching the Domino news channel. The weatherman was walking around in front of a green screen, apologizing for some technical difficulty they were experiencing.

"Are you staying for dinner Joey?" Grampa asked, seeing the blonde trailing in behind his grandson.

"If ya wouldn't mind, Mr. Moto." Joey gave his best cheesy grin to go with the unnecessarily polite sentiment.

Solomon snorted, seeing right through the boy's antics. "Go call your father and let him know."

"Like he'd care," Joey scoffed as he walked back out to the shop area to use the phone there.

"Uh, Grampa?" Yugi started, deciding to take his chance while Joey was gone and unable to throw a fit.

"Yes, Yugi? Oh, that unpleasant boy with the giant company, what's-his-name, uh…"

"Seto Kaiba?" Yugi offered. "Yes, him. He's going to have a press conference in just a few minutes. I can't decide whether to watch it or not. You don't want to encourage that sort of egotistical behavior in someone already so self-absorbed."

"I don't know if refusing to watch him would really make much of a difference, Grampa," Yugi said, smiling ruefully. What could Kaiba have to say right now that demanded news crews?

"I suppose not. Was there something you wanted, Yugi?" Grampa Moto asked, finally giving his grandson his full attention.

Yugi hesitated a moment, wondering if he might be putting his grandfather in danger considering the nature of the last package Pegasus had sent them.

In the end, he extended his arm towards his grandfather proffering the envelope. "I was supposed to give this to you yesterday, but I didn't know if I should," Yugi admitted candidly. "I got it from Pegasus in the park, and—"

"Oh!" Solomon interrupted, his face lighting up with something close to joy. "How wonderful! Thank you, Yugi!" The old man got up from his seat on the couch before the television and tottered over to Yugi, taking the envelope in his knobby hands. "I've been waiting for this for what feels like the longest time. I can't believe he actually came through!"

Yugi didn't even have a chance to ask what Pegasus had come through with before his grandfather had slipped past him and into the shop area of their home.

_I guess I shouldn't have worried_, Yugi remarked to Yami, a bit confused with the exchange.

_Apparently not,_ Yami responded, seeming just as baffled as Yugi.

Joey reentered the room then. "Did ya do it?" he asked, walking past Yugi and plopping himself down on the couch.

Yugi joined him. "Yeah. He seemed really pleased that I got it to him, too."

"Oh." Joey's forehead furrowed. "That's… freaky."

"No kidding."

They sat in silence for a while, both of them not paying attention to their surroundings as they puttered around in their individual thoughts.

Joey came back to himself just as the press conference being held at Kaiba Corp. was beginning.

"Hey, Yugi! What's Moneybags doin' on the TV?"

Yugi jumped back to himself to see Kaiba standing behind a podium bearing the KC logo of his company.

"I have no clue. My grandpa said this was going to come on before he left, but he didn't say why."

Why became evident after the first few questions. It was about Kisara. Specifically about Kaiba's association with her.

They listened as, one by one, the media spat every rumor that was currently abounding about the two of them in Kaiba's face, hoping for something juicy to be spat back.

"Mr. Kaiba! Is it true what the tabloids are saying about your relationship with Ki- Ms. Belikova?" one reporter shouted above the others.

Kaiba scoffed quite audibly into the mike. "What do you think?" he retorted.

"Ya'd think he could give dem a real answer after makin' such a fuss by gatherin' them all up," Joey commented scathingly, hating Kaiba even when he was onscreen.

"Mr. Kaiba, for how long have you been associating with Ivan Belikova's daughter?"

"She has a mother, too, you know," Seto remarked sarcastically, again, not actually giving an actual answer. Even Yugi thought that that was probably a question you should give a real response to. Who knows what the press would say about Seto's refusal to elaborate further?

"Mr. Kaiba?" This time, it was a strong voice that called out, silencing all the other clamoring reporters completely. "Is it true that Kaiba Corporation has signed Kitty Belle to duel for them?"

Kaiba paused for several drawn-out moments, turning his head to the side. It gave the network time to get a second camera going to show that Seto was in fact staring at Kisara who had been hidden off-screen. She wasn't her normal pale, Yugi noticed, but was much pastier and sick-looking color.

"No," Kaiba finally started up again. "Kaiba Corporation has not signed Kitty Belle… We've signed Kisara Belikova. There's a difference."

Both cameras caught as Kaiba and Kisara gave each other identical grins of shared victory.

**Thank you for reading!**

**I swear the plot will be showing up again in the next chapter (and, it will surely be longer… hopefully).**


	11. Déjà Vu Part 1

**In this chapter we'll finally get a taste for what I said (**_**so**_** brashly, so many chapters ago) about how I was going to be changing up what happened in the ancient past. So, be prepared! (That taste is more likely going to happen in 'Part Two', actually, so stay prepared.)**

Pegasus wondered at the brilliancy of having his own private plane. He'd been traveling back and forth between Russia so often that the build-up of frequent-flier-miles would have made it worth traveling with the unprivileged masses.

He'd just travelled to Moscow, _again_, to try to talk some sense into his crazed cousin. My gods, the idiot was going to end up in jail for what he'd done to block Kisara's funding in America, didn't he know that?

Pegasus sighed as he rubbed his hands briskly over his face. Then he smacked at his cheeks, trying to wake himself from the jetlag-induced sleepiness. Croquet gave his boss a troubled look. They were riding in the back seat of Pegasus's gaudy Cadillac after having left the airport and were heading home now.

At least he'd been able, after nearly a straight week of talking, to convince Ivan not to go along with what those _Collectors_ wanted.

"Come now, Pegasus. They're just like your card game enthusiasts, only… _more_," Ivan had condescendingly compared in defense of the cult he had become affiliated with. Pegasus would have assumed that Ivan had sold his soul to this suspicious, newly emerged group if he thought that his cousin _had_ a soul to sell in the first place.

Pegasus had also had another nerve-wracking conversation with Temnyĭ Mag during his visit. The teen (Pegasus assumed he was a teen) was starting to sound more and more restless and more and more unsatisfied with merely dragging Kisara back, kicking and screaming, to her father.

They arrived at Pegasus's Domino home just as Pegasus was seriously starting to tug at his sterling gray hair.

"Sir, we're here," Croquet announced.

"Mm, yes, yes," Pegasus muttered breezily, taking a moment to emerge from the car after his driver opened his door for him.

Even though Ivan and he had come to a complete agreement as to the course of action he would, or, rather, would not take, something wasn't settling well with Pegasus.

Walking in the door of his home-away-from-home, he contemplated, just briefly, what it would be like if his Kitty had agreed to live with him here rather than be Ms. Independent. His goddaughter had caught the America-bug at some point apparently.

Pegasus sighed again with gusto. It would have nice to have some sort of family member to greet him when he got back from a trip. Admittedly, most of his kin were much like himself and Ivan… so, in reality, the fewer of his ilk that were about, the safer for all concerned. That was why his dear Kitty was so special. Sometimes he even had to wonder if she was a member of his family at all.

"Any messages, Croquet?" Pegasus called out in the darkened halls of the cold house.

"One, sir, from your cousin Ivan," Croquet replied. "I'm transcribing it now."

Pegasus jumped like a cat's whose tail had been tread on. "He didn't," he breathed as he began to rush down the hall where the phone and answering machine were located.

Rounding the final corner, Pegasus came face-to-face with Croquet, holding the written form of the message in his hand, on his way to deliver it to his employer.

Snatching it away from his assistant/bodyguard (giving poor Croquet a nasty paper cut in the process), Pegasus feverishly read it through, and, as he finished, muttered to himself repeatedly, "No, he didn't. He _didn't_."

'_Cousin Pegasus, things changed. My daughter is now __**working**__ for Kaiba. I will not stand for this. __Temnyĭ Mag is deployed. Do try to live with it.'_

* * *

"Hey, guess what, Yug!" Joey shouted just before slamming his hands down on Yugi's French homework. "We're getting' a new kid!"

Yugi froze from trying to tug his papers out from under Joey's palms. "But, didn't we just—?"

"Get one? Yeah! But, come on, Kisara's old news," Joey dismissed, unconcerned that Kisara was easily capable of overhearing from her place in the back row. But she and Kaiba had their heads bent quite close together and were completely oblivious to anything other than the other person and the stack of papers set out across their two desktops that they had pushed together.

"Does this one have a weird hat too?" Tea joked, having been doing her own homework beside Yugi as they waited for class to start.

"Naw, this one doesn't need one." An impish smile curled Joey's lips. "He has _purple_ _hair_."

"…_Nooo_," Tristan drew out on Yugi's other side. "Really?" he asked on a snort.

"Unfortunately, yes," Bakura answered, having come in after Joey and seen the new kid for himself. "It's a really good dye-job, though, I'll give him that." Just before he sat down, he sent a wistful look to the back of the room. Yugi guessed he hadn't gotten over his near-hero-worship of Kisara in the past couple of months.

"What kind of purple are we talking about?" Tea asked judiciously, though, when it came to purple, it seems as if it would be difficult that any shade would be considered acceptable.

"We're talkin' about _purple_, here. Like, _oh-my-gods, blind-me-why-don't-cha?_ purple," Joey elaborated.

"It's a purple to make all other purples jealous," Bakura added, corroborating Joey's fanciful description.

Tristan whistled appreciatively. "Must be some purple."

"Like no other," Joey said reverently.

Tea and Yugi exchanged a smile. Even with Bakura's account backing his up, they knew Joey's story was likely to be just as embroidered as that of Kisara's "_monstrous hat_." It would be interesting, but no doubt disappointing in comparison when they actually did encounter the newest new kid.

They heard Ms. Liddy talking and laughing out in the hallway, her voice growing louder and louder the closer she got to the classroom.

Joey reluctantly slouched down into his chair, deprived of his chance to gossip further, in preparation of the teacher's arrival. Kisara and Seto continued to chat enthusiastically (gods only know over what) in the back of the room. In fact, they were becoming more and more fervent with a lot of pointing and encompassing sweeps of their hands. It was hard to tell whether they were squabbling or just passionately hammering out the details of something they both agreed on.

The two quieted slightly as Ms. Liddy opened the door, but it only seemed a matter of time before they started gaining volume once more.

Ms. Liddy had turned around in the door and was talking to someone out of sight. She had a fairly jovial look on her face, but was at the same time seemingly berating or advising whoever was still outside the door about something.

Joey leaned forward in his desk and muttered conspiratorially to Yugi, "_Purple hair_."

Yugi nodded, a small smile coming to his lips. He agreed; Domino High did have a rather strict dress code that included no covering, too strange of an arrangement, or dying of the hair in unnatural colors. When Yugi had first come into the high school, he'd actually had to bring his grampa in to testify that the colors and growth of his hair was, indeed, hereditary and not some sort of statement or form societal rebellion. The new kid was no doubt being informed of these policies, just as Kisara had been of the no-hat rule on her first day.

And, apparently, the new kid was putting up a bit of a fight. Ms. Liddy was losing her natural good humor as the debate went on, and Yugi heard her near-condescendingly comment, "I do find that hard to believe, Mahad…"

_Yami, 'Mahad' is an Egyptian name, right?_ Yugi asked.

_Sounds like it…_ Yami answered distractedly, almost hostilely.

_What's the matter now?_ Yugi pressed. Was this going to be the reaction every time they were confronted with someone that Yami hadn't been intimately acquainted with for several months? He still hid deep inside the Puzzle whenever Yugi got within five feet of Kisara, though Yugi had the feeling he kept an open ear, trying to hear whatever it was she was talking about. Yugi doubted that he got very much, though, especially considering how she and Kaiba had been murmuring and scheming to themselves for the past few days, since Kaiba went on the air and announced that, in fact, he had hired her to work for him. Apparently Kisara was being bombarded by questions and demands of knowledge about what Kaiba had going on in the undergrounds of KC whenever Kaiba himself wasn't around to scare them off.

_I feel the same sort of strangeness as when Kisara showed up," _Yami brusquely admitted, well aware of how his declaration would be taken.

Yugi felt his own lips tighten, but he refused to comment, for both his and Yami's sakes. Another couple of weeks of fighting wouldn't help or convince either of them to change their minds.

_It's different, though, from last time_, Yami hesitantly tacked on.

Yugi blinked a couple of times. _How so?_

_It's not as… foreboding? Menacing? It's better all around,_ Yami summed up.

_So you're not immediately going to hate whoever walks through the door?_ Yugi asked skeptically.

_Well, I may consider them odd for having purple hair,_ Yami joked, bringing another smile to Yugi's face. _But I don't think any viscerally negative reaction will be in order._

_That's good_.

Ms. Liddy finally turned into the room, furrowing her brow and no longer tottering on her heels as she had on Kisara's first day. But no one noticed either of these things. Instead, just as on Kisara's first day, they were fascinated by the new kid following her to her desk.

"Now, that's what I call purple," Tristan murmured appreciatively.

"What did I tell ya?" Joey smugly prodded.

Said purple hair was a bit longer than shoulder length and was truly, riotously, _distractingly_ purple. It took several moments for any other details to sink in.

"Oh my gods, I _love_ his hair," Yugi heard Paisley say two rows back.

"He's _tall_," Tea said in quiet wonderment.

"Cool, Kaiba's not the tallest in school anymore," Joey remarked in glee.

In the back of the room, Kisara had stopped talking and was staring hard at the newcomer. No matter what he did, Seto couldn't get her attention back on him, causing him to become a teensy bit jealous.

"What, do you love his hair and height, too?" he sneered, hearing the murmurs the rest of the class was spewing.

"I hate his eyes," Kisara bluntly answered, not removing her gaze from Mahad.

Caught off guard by her reaction, Seto took a moment to find his voice. "You haven't even seen his eyes yet," he pointed out.

They were currently hidden by his bangs as he watched Ms. Liddy try to pull her teaching materials together. Realizing that she was going to be finished soon, he let his still-unseen eyes roam over the front of the classroom, seeing the ticks and smears left over from not-quite fully erased phrases and reminders.

Moving on, his veiled eyes traced over the front row. Seto visibly saw the exact moment those eyes in question found Yugi Moto; his head jerked to a stop, causing his hair to shift slightly to the side, revealing a hint of aquamarine. The new kid sucked in a deep breath, expanding his chest, just as a shudder seemed to run down Yugi Moto's back, causing him to latch onto his desk with a white-knuckled grip.

Seto looked over to see Kisara still focused on Mahad. Her eyes were wide and seemed a more intense blue than Seto had ever seen before. Her lips was slightly parted, reminding Seto of the way cats would breathe through their mouths in order to get a better sense of what was around them through the use of their Jacobson's Organ. Obviously Kisara wouldn't have one of those, but she was evoking the thought of "predator." Seto found it fascinating, if a tad disturbing.

"What is it?" Seto whispered.

The spell broke between Mahad and Yugi. His head snapped up, giving Seto and Kisara a full view of his severe, enraged azure irises. He was looking directly at Kisara and seemed ready to smash his way through the desks and students in his way just to get to her and relieve the murderous glint from his eyes.

Kisara repeated, "I _hate_ his eyes."

**Thanks for reading! This is only part one. Part two should be up sometime tomorrow. **


	12. Déjà Vu Part 2

**Part two! It's posted a few days later than I anticipated it to be, but it's here now. **

**And, just a reminder, I can't respond to anonymous reviews. So while I would love to answer your questions, I simply can't. Sorry about that. **

If Kisara were a cat, living up to her nickname, her spine would be arched, her tail would be straight up, and she'd be puffed up to about three times her normal size as she hissed and spat in the general direction of the new kid. Or that's what Seto thought at least. The entire time she'd had her eyes on the purple-haired stranger, Seto had had his eyes on her, and she hadn't even noticed, despite the fact that he'd been watching her nonstop for the majority of the fifty-minute period. He was considering throwing his pen at her to get her attention.

But just as he wouldn't throw something at an angry cat for fear that the cat would turn its wrath upon _him_, he was not going to dare to toss anything at Kisara for the same reason. Though, seeing how much of a temper Kisara really had inherited from her father would be an interesting experiment in and of itself.

Instead, Seto gently reached out and _carefully_ removed the pencil she had clutched tightly in her hand since seeing _Mahad_ enter the room. Seto was surprised it hadn't snapped the instant their eyes had met.

Kisara hardly noticed him taking the pencil away. And ironically enough, that caused _him_ to snap.

Ignoring what he'd previously thought, with a flick of his wrist, he flipped the pencil through the air, aiming for Kisara's shoulder and hitting right on target. Kisara jumped and jerked her head in his direction. For a moment, she frowned, as if she didn't understand something, but then everything snapped into place for her, and she sent him his own, personalized glare, actually satisfying Seto to some extent.

"What?" Kisara finally asked when Seto said nothing.

"Just wondering why you're so _fascinated_ by the new kid," Seto attempted to say flippantly, not realizing that he was baring his teeth as he did so. "Do you _know_ him?"

Kisara narrowed her eyes even more than she had while staring at the purple-haired newbie. "Do _you_ really need to know?" she hissed back.

...Seto hadn't been expecting that. At all.

"Maybe it's none of your business, did you ever think of that?" Kisara continued, proving that Seto had been right in assuming that to provoke her would be a bad idea. Too late now.

"Excuse me for being concerned," Seto sarcastically begged, unable to curb his natural antagonistic response. Plus, he was still ticked over the attention that she'd been _lavishing_ over the new kid.

"You don't need to be, so stay out of it," Kisara brutally dismissed.

"…Fine," Seto grumbled, viciously turning away from her.

_Now_ he could feel her eyes on him. Rolling his own, Seto couldn't help but feel that someone up there didn't like him today.

Deciding to completely ignore her and see how _she_ liked it, Seto focused on the front of the room.

Mahad was staring back at them. More specifically, he was keeping an eye on Kisara with the same intensity as she had when the situation was reversed.

Whatever the connection between the two newest kids in Domino High, Seto _was_ going to find it out, whether Kisara wanted to tell him or not.

* * *

Mahad had taken the seat that Yugi had tried to reserve for Kisara on her first day. Yugi just knew that, behind him, Joey had been flagrantly observing the new kid to his left the entire period.

Out of the corner of his own eye, Yugi had seen how tense Tea had become with the new presence behind her. Mahad was the kind of guy that was hard to ignore, even when he wasn't in sight; you just _knew_ where he was, and, for Tea, and even Yugi to an extent, knowing he was behind them was enormously unnerving. Yami disagreed.

_I think it's safer having him there,_ the Pharaoh remarked contently, like he was suddenly all snug and cozy in his Millennium Puzzle with the Great Purple Beast behind them.

_How so?_ Yugi asked dubiously, shifting his shoulders into a hunched position.

_Well, if he's behind us, my bet is nothing else dangerous or threatening is going to be there, ne?_

Yugi couldn't argue with that, really. And it still didn't change the extreme uneasiness that Yugi so acutely felt. He wasn't going to complain the next time Yami said he felt edgy around Kisara. He got it now.

Yugi jumped, his heart thumping wild, when a folded bit of paper landed and skittered across his desk.

_Joey's passing notes again_, Yami commented amusedly. A year or so ago, Joey had gone through a phase where he'd refused to communicate at school unless it was through note-passing. It had gotten rather annoying and fairly arduous after a while, but Joey was stubborn.

Quietly unfolding the note in slow, hopefully unnoticeable motions, Yugi finally got it opened and spread flat on his desk.

'_What do you think of the new guy?'_ it read.

Yugi emphasized a noncommittal shrug of his shoulders to give Joey his answer.

He heard Joey give an unenthused grunt of recognition. Tea gave the two boys an anxious look out of the corner of her eye, wondering what they were up to now.

Class ended a few minutes later, and Tea practically leapt from her seat in her disquiet. Mahad had been turned around in his seat, looking at something in the back of the room, but turned at the commotion the girl in front of him had made.

"Um… hello," Tea greeted awkwardly after a moment.

The new kid's aquamarine eyes blinked at her in mild interest, but he didn't say anything; he just began gathering his books into his backpack, completely ignoring her. When he finished that, Mahad retrieved a piece of paper from his back pocket.

Leaning over in his seat, Joey started, "Ah, your schedule, huh? Hey, how's about we show ya around?"

Mahad blinked without speaking again, only this time at Joey. Then, slowly, his eyes traveled the short distance to Yugi's face. They stayed there a moment before dropping to linger on the Millennium Puzzle.

Just as Yugi was starting to feel uncomfortable, Mahad nodded, his eyes still on the Puzzle, and said stiltedly, "Yes. I would like that. Thank you."

"Huh, really?" Joey asked, having figured the guy would blow them of like Kisara had. "Alright, man!" he crowed cheerfully enough, giving Mahad a friendly punch on the arm.

When they all stood up and Tristan and Bakura also crowded around, Mahad looked ever so slightly overwhelmed by the group he had paying attention to him.

Joey was the one who took control and began herding them all in the direction of the door, making introductions as they went. Tristan and Bakura were friendly enough, Tea smiled when Joey said her name, though she made sure to keep Mahad in her view, and Yugi determined to be civil, but also a bit wary, as well, especially as Mahad was continuing to stare at him in such an unnerving manner.

When they got to the hallway, the new kid had yet to say anything other than his earlier, brief acceptance of their help. Joey was doing a bang-up job of dominating the conversation. He now snatched Mahad's schedule from his hand and read it over.

"Okay, then," Joey began, "let's figure out who'll show the new guy where. Uh… looks like Tea and I can show him to his next class…"

Kisara and Kaiba exited the room as Joey was divvying up the next few periods. Mahad, who had hardly seemed to have been listening to anything the gang said, immediately fastened his sights on Kisara. The moment he did so, she seemed to know it.

Kaiba and Kisara had been walking with an unaccustomed distance between them. Kaiba had a stony look on his features and was walking between Kisara and Mahad. He sent a spiteful look in the new kid's direction, but it was Kisara's reaction that was the unexpected one.

Looking beyond Seto, Kisara's and Mahad's eyes met, and, as he shared look continued, Kisara seemed to lose it.

"What are you looking at?" she snarled, shocking beyond belief everyone who heard her, causing them all to pause in whatever they were doing. The only person who'd been listening and didn't seem all that surprised was Seto, who'd also stopped on his way to his second class. He _did_ have a new, odd expression on his face, but it was more of a '_gods-here-we-go-again_' sort of look than a '_gods-what-just-happened_' one.

Mahad did not answer her, but he did take several steps in her and Kaiba's direction, seeming to incense Kisara even more.

The purple-haired boy seemed to come to a stand-still, just as the other students seemed to have gotten over the minor disturbance. But, then he had to go a take one more ill-considered step, and Kisara flew at him.

Ducking around Kaiba and nearly falling off of her heels, Kisara took two long strides and backhanded Mahad across the face.

It took several seconds for Kisara's actions to sink in, giving Yugi time to notice that the expression on Mahad's struck face was one of fulfilled expectations.

Seto was the first to leap into action, snagging her around the waist and physically carrying her several feet down the hall before setting her back on her own two feet and tugging her by her arm down the quiet hall.

"…What the hell was dat?" Joey asked as they watched Kaiba tow a practically rabid Kisara down the halls.

* * *

By the time Seto had dragged Kisara across the school to the empty art room, her seemingly irrational, out-of-nowhere anger had once again found a new target in Seto.

"Let go of me!" she demanded once he'd kicked the paint-spattered door shut behind them. Her sleeve nearly ripped along the shoulder-seam when she tore her arm from Seto's grip as she rounded on him. "What is your problem?"

"Mine?" Seto shouted back incredulously. "I'm not the one taking swings at people at school. We already have every tabloid on our case over things that aren't even true! Do you want them to get wind of something like this?"

"It had nothing to do with you!" she rejoined, getting right in his face.

"Yes, it does!" Seto agonizingly screamed.

The art room door flew open, nearly striking the two of them right on the other side of it. They leaped back in tandem as Mr. Vee rushed through.

"What's going— …Kaiba? Kisara?" Mr. Vee looked absolutely shocked to find that it was these two that he'd heard at each other's throats as he was passing by outside. "Um… Are you two having a fight?"

And Seto usually considered Mr. Vee to be one of the brighter teachers at Domino High.

Seto opened his mouth just as Kisara bluntly stated, "Yes."

Seto closed his mouth, pressing it into a thin line as he frowned at Kisara, who had conveniently become fascinated with the graffiti the art teacher had allowed to be smattered all over the room's walls.

"Oh…" Mr. Vee blinked confusedly, his estimation in Kaiba's eyes continuing to diminish blink by blink. "I thought you guys were such a happy couple," he ended up muttering.

It was Seto's turn to blink in bewilderment. Kisara's too.

"I didn't know you read gossip rags, Mr. Vee," Seto said, recovering first, unconcerned with how his disrespectful tone would be received.

Again, a round of blinking ensued. "I don't know exactly what you mean by that… but, I know what I see in my classroom. You two aren't dating?"

"…Not that we were aware of," Kisara finally stated for them both.

Mr. Vee seemed on the verge of accusing her of lying to him when he instead chose to tell them, "In any case, I'd get to your next class if I were you two. I heard about your round of detentions, Mr. Kaiba. Let's not have a second round ensue, alright? You too, Ms. Belikova."

Seto resisted the urge to roll his eyes at the official tone Mr. Vee had assumed in order to cover up for his earlier familiarity.

"We will, Mr. Vee," Kisara promised.

Realizing that he was about to be late for teaching his own class, Mr. Vee nodded and abruptly left them on their own, seeming embarrassed for his un-teacher-like conduct.

"Everything's a little off today, isn't it?" Kisara ended up remarking after a period of silence.

"'_A little off_',' is that all it is?" Seto couldn't help but sneer. Letting his bag drop to the floor, Seto began wandering around the messy, über colorful room.

He heard Kisara give a humorless chuckle. "I guess it is a bit more than that," she admitted.

Cupboards overflowing with paints, colored pencils, construction paper, and everything else an artist might possibly require took up an entire wall. Easels everywhere were covered with "masterpieces" in the making. Seto wondered which might be Kisara's and if he'd know it when he saw it.

"Do you really not know that guy?" Seto asked, wanting to kick himself even as he did. He felt like some love-struck idiot, especially after Mr. Vee had basically accused them of being together.

"I really don't," she answered, causing Seto's shoulders to slump ever so slightly in relief. But she almost sounded scared as she spoke. "I have no clue why I reacted like that to him."

Seto turned and saw Kisara with her arms crossed, holding herself together.

"I didn't even think about hitting him. I didn't even think about why I hated him. I just did in both cases. I _despise_ him, and I don't even know why." She looked on the verge of tears.

Not knowing himself why he was doing it, Seto found himself walking across the room and putting an arm around Kisara. Her head fit perfectly under his chin.

"If it helps at all, I think I hate him, too," Seto offered. He didn't tack on that he knew the reason for his own bad feelings.

Kisara chuckled again.

"Are you going to be okay?" Seto asked.

Pulling away, Kisara gave Seto a wan smile. "As long as I don't attack anyone else, I should be fine," she drolly responded.

"Everyone else should be too," Seto joked in turn.

Kisara laughed but stopped as a thought seemed to strike her. "Would you like to see the painting Alec is doing? You've contributed to it, after all."

Seto winced a little as the skinny little artist's name came up, but nodded his head grudgingly.

Kisara gave him a look that showed she knew he was just _enthused_ over the idea, but dragged him over to an easel in the far corner anyway.

It was obviously far from being complete, but Seto could see the basics of where the painting was going. Kisara was the focal point of the painting, wearing the school uniform, but having traded out the traditional pink sweater for Seto's blue jacket, just as he knew she would be doing. Rather than being centered, Kisara was shown sitting on a stool to the lower right of the middle of the canvas. Alec had apparently yet to decide what he wanted to show Kisara doing as she sat there, there being many erased and redrawn lines all about her currently posed figure.

In the upper left corner where Alec had left some room there was the outline of a door and the silhouette of what Seto assumed to be a man there. For some reason, this greatly disturbed him.

Shaking his head and clearing his throat to try to get rid of his apprehension, Seto chose to ask, "Who's the second figure supposed to be?" He tapped his finger against the canvas.

"Oh, I think it's Alec trying to put himself into the picture," Kisara answered unconcernedly, shrugging as she did so.

Seto smirked, though a little distractedly. "Maybe it's me come to get my jacket back," he suggested. It got another laugh from Kisara, but Seto still wasn't able to get rid of the nagging, foreboding sensation in the back of his mind…

* * *

_Seto stalked through the palace halls. After getting the Pharaoh's reluctant approval to allow Kisara to remain within the same walls as his own, royal self, Seto thought that keeping track of Kisara would become less of an issue._

_What a laughable idea._

_He had been searching for her for __**two hours**__, and now he was not the only one upset. The Pharaoh had gotten wind of the missing Kisara not too long ago, and had issued his priest an ultimatum: If Seto couldn't find Kisara in the next thirty minutes, the royal guard would be sent out to drag Kisara back by any means necessary. _

_Running his hands over his face, Seto knew he was in trouble. He had only ever had to search a few rooms for Kisara before finding her, and that was only during the rare instances when she wasn't immediately by his side. _

_He was worried. With everyone suspicious of him after Aknadin's defection and the revelation that Seto was next in line to the throne through Aknadin, it was entirely possible for someone to have decided to get rid of what everyone considered to be Seto's most powerful and dangerous asset._

_The mere thought made the priest quicken his pace._

_When he heard voices at the end of the hall he was traveling down, Seto strained to discern if either of them were Kisara's._

_When one of them gave an animalistic roar/hiss that Seto had heard once before on a much greater scale, he knew he'd found her. Almost tripping on the hem of his robes, Seto hustled, worried that Kisara was about or already had done something that would put them in danger of being separated one way or another._

_Kisara was already storming her way down the hall in his direction, her own white robes flaring around her like wings, an expression of frustration mixed with worry and dragon-esque rage on her face._

_Upon seeing him, Kisara rushed in his direction, breaking into a light jog to reach him sooner._

_As relief spread through him, Seto caught sight of someone moving beyond Kisara, past her left shoulder._

_It was a man standing in a doorway, the one Kisara herself must have come out of. He was rubbing the side of his face as he stood in shadow, watching as Kisara quickly moved away from him._

_When Kisara reached him, the priest wrapped Kisara in his arms and spun them both so that their backs were to the mysterious person._

_The silhouette could have been that of the pharaoh himself and Seto still wouldn't care if he insulted his Majesty. No one was taking his Kisara from him, __**no one**__._

**Thanks for reading!**

**I don't think that many of you saw the disgusting message I got on the chapter before this; I deleted it the moment it came to my attention, so don't try to find it (you really wouldn't want to anyway). I just wanted you guys to know that I do still allow anonymous reviews, however, if you submit something anonymously that is spam or is in anyway disrespectful, vile, or vulgar, I will delete it. Criticism is fine, of course, but **_**not**_** the sort of message intended to pointlessly insult, disgust, or alarm me.**


	13. Thieving and Giving

**This chapter is being published later than what I promised on my blog (****Mistletoe Midnight**** on Z. Romance was partly responsible for getting in the way), but it was originally actually supposed to be published around Halloween… so, yeah. My bad! (I believe college had something to do with that.)**

Kisara looked like a zombie. Of course, Seto wasn't sure he looked much better.

The new Duel Disks were coming along beautifully, but at the cost of everyone who was working on it. If someone _didn't_ look on the verge of collapse, Seto figured they were slacking off and removed them from the project immediately, despite how counterintuitive that seemed. But, then again, Seto was himself one of the people who appeared to be about to drop dead from exhaustion at any moment, so maybe his judgment wasn't as up to par as it should be (not that _he_ would ever admit to the possibility).

Kisara yawned, trying to cover it up with her hand, and Seto couldn't help but smirk a little before his own yawn took over.

Kisara chuckled as she rubbed at her tired eyes with the palms of her hand. "When does school start?"

"In about six hours," Seto answered.

"And, you said we were going to finish early," Kisara scoffed good-naturedly as the Town Car hit a pothole, causing her head to bob languidly on her neck, as if she hadn't the strength or the will to keep it still. Today, rather than actually having her duel, Kisara was let in on some of the more technical talks revolving around the Duel Disks. She wasn't able to give much input in this area, but she did come up with a few suggestions along the way that were going to be seriously considered over the next few days.

In truth, Seto had just wanted Kisara to be there. For the past several weeks, he, Kisara, and Mokuba had all met after school in the KC Testing Blocks. Nearly all of KC test duelists had beaten the computer they all initially were set against, and a few, like Kisara, were triumphing over it consistently. For the last few days, they'd been pairing the duelists against each other, seeing the effects of the disks working against each other. They'd also brought in "old-fashioned" duel disks for the same reason. Problems had arisen in getting the two generations to sync up correctly. So, the test duelists had been given a few days off while Seto and the technicians sorted out the compatibility issue, but Seto had still asked Kisara to come in, if for no other reason than to keep him company through the long hours.

"We _did _finish early," Seto insisted, holding back a second yawn.

"_Your_ 'early' and _my_ 'early' are two very different things, I believe," Kisara countered.

"Apparently."

Kisara smiled and slid a little ways across the backseat toward him, her side softly colliding with Seto's as she nestled up to him, letting her head rest on his shoulder.

"I better be getting paid overtime for this," she murmured, sounding like she might just drift off to sleep then and there.

"Whatever you say," Seto said complacently, letting his own weary head rest atop hers.

It was nice, this moment of peace. Breakthroughs were occurring every day at Kaiba Corp. despite the current situation, leaving little time to spend on simple things like resting or eating or socializing. Seto was used to not eating much and he could normally give less than a damn when it came to socializing, but even he felt like his eyelids were too heavy to keep lifted at some points. Being flush against Kisara's warm body and not have anything expected of him for just a few minutes was absolute heaven.

The city was quiet around the car as it glided through the streets to drop Kisara off at her condo before finally taking Seto home where Mokuba was already waiting.

Suddenly, the car lurched to a halt, throwing the two of them against their seatbelts.

Jerked wide awake, Seto began cursing a blue streak and swearing revenge against whatever had ruined the moment as Kisara did her best to untangle herself from the seatbelt she'd nearly slid out from under.

"I'm sorry, sir," Roland called from the front passenger seat. "But there are a couple of police cars ahead with their lights on. They're blocking the street."

Seto's eyes narrowed. "Where are we?" he demanded to know.

"Just outside Ms. Belikova's building, sir," Roland answered.

Seto felt Kisara freeze beside him, as if she knew exactly what had gone wrong. Then Kisara made for the car door, leaving Seto scrambling after her.

"Sir!" Roland shouted after his employer just before Seto slammed the door behind him.

Kisara was already several feet ahead of him, nearly jogging up to the two cars with their flashing blue and red lights.

A couple of officers were with the cars and caught sight of the two teenagers approaching. Before either could say anything, Kisara called out to them, "Excuse me! I live here. What's happened?"

"Would you happen to be… Ki_ssaa_rah Bell_ii_kovva?" a flustered, older officer queried.

"That would be me," Kisara replied, not bothering to correct his pronunciation of her name. Seto had finally caught up with her and they both came to a stop before the officers.

"Then would you please follow me up to your condo? There's been an incident, I'm afraid."

The younger of the two looked like he should still be in high school and had been staring at Seto with a slack-jawed look of awe on his face. He snapped back to himself at his partner's words. "Um, also, we have your cat in our car." They all looked in the backseat of the nearest cruiser to see the long-haired white Siberian glaring at them all, her tail jerking about in severe irritation. "It was loose in the halls and was causing trouble for the other tenants and us, and we couldn't find a carrying crate for it. It's calmed down quite a bit since when we first put her in there."

"Okay, thank you," Kisara said distractedly.

Seto looked at the young policeman's hands and saw several claw and bite marks.

"Please, miss?" the older officer asked, indicating the doorway.

Kisara started to follow him when she noticed Seto moving along beside her. "You don't need to come," she let him know.

"I'm still going to," Seto informed her. Kisara smiled, the expression brittle and half-hearted.

Looking back over his shoulder, Seto signaled Roland and his driver to wait.

The halls of the building were surprisingly empty for all the commotion outside. While they were in the elevator, the policeman gave Seto a discreet look out of the corner of his eye. "Excuse me, but are you related to him, miss?" he queried.

Kisara jumped a little, having gotten lost in her thoughts. "Uh, no, but can he come anyway?"

He looked like he wanted to tell her 'no,' but the distressed look on her face stopped him. He sighed. "Do you trust him?" he settled for asking.

Kisara nodded, and Seto felt a momentary flush of warmth. When the officer turned his attention away, Seto placed his hand on her shoulder and squeezed it reassuringly. She reached up and squeezed his hand back, but she was obviously worried. What exactly were they going into?

The elevator doors opened for her floor, and here there were some people milling about outside their doorways, looking curiously at the bashed-in door down the hall. Their group of three wove through these people to the broken door. More police officers were waiting inside.

One of them approached them when they entered and began speaking with Kisara, but Seto didn't hear what was said.

The condo was _trashed_. Everything, from the cat's food and water bowls, to the kitchen cupboards' contents, to the white couch in the main living area, was obviously knocked out of its proper place. The couch also bore several gashes in its fabric, leaving its stuffing spewed out over the living room.

Seto looked down by his side and saw Kisara's pink school sweater shredded and the coat rack it had been hanging on lying snapped in half next to it. This was probably the most disturbing image in the apartment that Seto had seen so far.

Shivering slightly, Seto turned his attention back to Kisara. The detective had left her and she was now looking around her apartment with a look tinged with anger, but lacking the dazed and confused quality Seto had been expecting. He narrowed his eyes suspiciously and took a step closer to her, putting a hand on her arm in a way that would seem solicitous to anyone watching.

"Were you expecting something like this to happen?" Seto asked quietly, too low for the policemen to overhear.

Kisara gave a pained sort of smile. "I'm kind of surprised it took this long, actually," she admitted. Seto waited for her to elaborate, keeping an eye on the cops. Ever since he'd gone to live with Gozaburo, he'd developed a distrust of the police force. Probably because, even though Gozaburo on the surface was a law-abiding citizen, that façade hadn't reached down to his core.

"Miss?" one of the officers called before Seto could ask Kisara anything more. "I realize it's a mess, but could you please look around and see if anything's missing?"

Kisara nodded and, slipping easily from Seto's light grip, headed out of the main room to her bedroom. Seto followed.

Here was trashed, too. The mattress was on the other side of the room than the bed frame, one of the windows was broken, and everything that could be was hurled across the room in a random pattern of destruction. Whoever had done this not only had been looking for something, but had really disliked Kisara as well.

Kisara kneeled down by the closet and picked up a high-heeled shoe that's heel was now dangling free from the rest of it but for a few threads. Peeking over her shoulder, Seto saw that every one of her pairs of shoes had been mangled in some way, either the heels broken nearly or all the way off or the soles ripped out.

"Have you ever hidden anything in your shoes?" Seto asked.

"Yeah. My deck for a while," Kisara answered.

Seto's eyes narrowed. "Where do you hide it now?"

Kisara chuckled humorlessly and stood up. "I _don't_ hide it now. There's no need to here… or, there _was_ no need to." Kisara turned and pointed to the end table next to the bed frame. It was the one piece of furniture in the room left seemingly unmolested. "Normally, I have it sitting right there."

Seto walked over to the table. Everything on it was in order: a lamp, an alarm clock, a copy of something by Tamora Pierce… but, no deck of Duel Monster cards.

_Why would they want that?_ Seto had seen every card in her deck. And, just as she'd said on her first day, she did have a few rare cards that she'd gotten from her godfather, but nothing that seemed worth going through all this trouble for. What was going on?

Just as Seto turned to discuss it with Kisara, one of the detectives came in and occupied her attention for the rest of their time there.

Seto continued looking around the room, wondering at the severity of the damage. He came back to himself when he heard the detective ask, "Do you have somewhere else you can go tonight?"

Seto answered for her. "She does."

Kisara smiled gratefully, her eyes tired. She nodded her thanks. "Is there anything else you need, sir?" she asked the cop.

The detective offered her a wan smile. "Just for you to get your cat out of our guys' car."

* * *

"Yugi, you have a visitor!" Solomon Moto shouted up from the Game Shop.

"I'll be there in a minute, Grandpa!" Yugi yelled back.

_Is it Joey? _Yami asked sleepily from the Puzzle. He'd been quiet for the last few hours, resting, or whatever the equivalent of resting was in the Millennium Puzzle.

"No," Yugi answered aloud. "If it was Joey, he'd be up here already. There wouldn't have been a chance for Grandpa to sound a warning."

Yami chuckled. _True_.

Yugi pushed away from his desk, leaving behind his nearly done Algebra I homework, and headed down the hallway for the stairs.

"Who is it, Grandpa?" Yugi called, somewhat lazily. It had been a rather lethargic afternoon. Actually, it had been a sluggish week all around. Except for all the drama surrounding the Belikova break-in, but Yugi hadn't felt that that concerned him, so he ignored it (despite how much the rest of the school, and Joey in particular, had seemed to think otherwise). No one knew much about the details, though theories were abounding. Yugi didn't even know how they'd gotten the news in the first place since it didn't seem to be on the news, but they did.

"It's… it's… well, I don't know who it is!" Solomon called up. Yugi winced as he began own the stairs and heard his grandfather ask the currently nameless person who they were.

"He says his name's Mahad!" Solomon shouted.

Yugi froze at the same time Yami perked up.

_What's he doing here?_ they both thought, though with different levels of enthusiasm.

Yugi crept down the last of the stairs, and, sure enough, the towering, purple-haired new kid stood on the other side of the counter, seeming to be perusing the cards beneath the glass.

Solomon left his place across from Mahad and came over to Yugi.

"Yugi, have I met this friend of yours before? He looks familiar, but I don't know what from…" he trailed off, looking confusedly over his shoulder.

"No, Grandpa. He just transferred to the school a couple weeks ago."

"Are you sure, Yugi? I really feel as though…"

"I'm sure, Grampa," Yugi dismissed with an awkward laugh, scooting around the old man.

"Hello, Mahad," Yugi greeted, coming up to the counter. "Um, what are you doing here?"

_Be polite, Yugi_, Yami reprimanded.

_Shh, don't distract me._

"I was wondering if we might talk," Mahad answered woodenly, straightening from his examination of the Game Shop's rarer cards.

"Oh, okay… Uh, would you like to come upstairs?" Yugi turned back to his grandfather. "Is that okay, Grandpa?"

Solomon still had a frown on his face, but easily agreed, waving the two boys up to the second story. He watched their retreating backs, not quite uneasily, but with a sense of _knowing_ with no foundation to it. It disturbed Solomon.

When they reached his room, Yugi immediately offered Mahad a seat at his desk, Yami's comment about being polite stinging, even if he didn't really think he'd been all that rude.

Mahad nodded and took the swivel chair while Yugi settled cross-legged a few feet away on the bed.

For several moments it was quiet.

"So… What did you want to talk about?" Yugi began uncomfortably.

Out of the corner of his eye, Yugi thought he saw Mahad's foot fidget. The tall teenager had been hanging around with Yugi and his friends ever since Joey had invited to show him around on his first day. During that time, Yugi had found a few things out about him: he didn't like talking about where he'd come from (or talking at all for that matter), his purple hair was _natural_, which was what he and Ms. Liddy had been squabbling about on his first day (dyed hair was not allowed in Domino High), and, if it was at all possible, Mahad did not move. Even blinking seemed to be kept to a minimum with Mahad. So if he _had_ fidgeted, something must be up with the exceptionally reserved man.

"Might I…" Mahad started slowly. "Might I speak with… the pharaoh?"

Yugi swore his heart stopped. His thought processes certainly did, and when they started up again, the first thing that shot across his mind was: _Who told?_

He immediately felt bad for suspecting his friends first off, but how else could Mahad have known?

_I had a feeling_… Yami said slowly, deliberately.

_You had a theory about Kisara, too_, Yugi pointed out.

_And, at one point we were operating under the idea that she might be the Blue-Eyes White Dragon_, Yami rejoined.

Giving his attention back to Mahad, Yugi saw that he had unbuttoned the jacket of his school uniform that he was wearing, and had drawn something out of an inner pocket.

It was a Duel Monsters card that Mahad kept facing towards himself.

"If you're having trouble deciding," Mahad extended the card, still facedown, "this might help."

_Yami…?_

Yugi could feel Yami thinking for a moment and felt the decision before the pharaoh could articulate it.

Yugi wrapped his fingers around the card.

* * *

_Mahad walked into the pharaoh's chambers without even the briefest pause caused by the host of guards surrounding it. They knew better. _

"_So, how did it go?" the pharaoh asked._

"_She's being stubborn," Mahad answered stiffly. _

_The pharaoh's lips tightened. "She's a lot like Seto in that regard."_

"_Did you send the priest to find her?" Mahad questioned. He'd been slightly baffled to see Seto in the hall after he'd been told to get Kisara alone so as to "convince" her to leave the palace._

"_We still need Seto. If he got the idea that we were trying to force the dragon away, then we would lose his support. I had to send him after her," the pharaoh answered. _

_Mahad narrowed his eyes. "If he keeps her in his company, we will lose his support anyhow," he retorted._

_The pharaoh returned his glare. On the one hand, having someone who was close enough to him that he wasn't scared to address him so insolently was nice. Seto used to be like that. But every once and a while he'd prefer a bit more formality from his confidants. _

"_Do you __**really**__ believe that Kisara is that much of a threat?" the pharaoh asked again. They were putting a preposterous amount of energy into removing Kisara from the scene quietly. If there were any way to eliminate the threat she might pose without the need for all this secrecy, then the pharaoh would take it. And it wasn't as if Seto didn't know something was up. Nearly the entire court had removed itself from the priest's presence. Only Isis had remained steadfast, which had brought some comfort to the pharaoh, and Kisara had ended up chasing her off. _

"_Pharaoh," Mahad began, his tone slightly softened at his friend's mildly obvious distress, "it's too much of a risk to allow Seto, Aknadin's son, the __**next in line to the throne**__, to have such a powerful ally bound to him. She's made it clear that she won't allow herself to be used by anyone but Seto." Mahad's lips twisted for a moment. "And even he has issues with her. It's too much of a risk to allow her any more, Pharaoh."_

_After a moment, the Pharaoh nodded. "Deal with her."_

* * *

For several seconds after Yami and Yugi left the memory, Yugi's eyes were unable to focus on anything but the foreign Dark Magician card he held in his quivering hand.

_Do you remember any of that, Yami?_ Yugi finally asked.

…_No._ The pharaoh's disappointment in himself was obvious. _But that was not meant to be my memory, I don't think._

Shakily, Yugi shifted his eyes up to meet the aquamarine irises of Mahad's. They were serious, but not as flat as they had once been.

_They were his. He's from your past._

_He's someone I trusted from my past,_ Yami mildly corrected.

The silence continued.

_Where's he been staying?_ Yami abruptly asked. _His pants and undershirt are filthy. _Yugi blinked, not having noticed the dirt and grass-stains, but relayed the question.

Mahad blinked as well. "Where I can."

"So you don't have a hotel room or, I don't know, a youth hostel you can go to?" Yugi asked, his eyes wide with sympathy.

"I do not need one," Mahad replied matter-of-factly.

Shaking his head as Mahad watched, Yugi made his way out into the hallway.

"Grandpa!" he called down the stairs.

"Yes, Yugi?"

"Can Mahad stay overnight?"

"Sure!"

Returning to his room, Yugi informed Mahad, with much more authority than he was usually blessed with, "You'll stay here, for tonight at least. But for payment you _are_ going to tell me… and the pharaoh, what is going on and what it has to do with Kitty Belikova."

* * *

Seto's eyes were burning painfully. He needed to blink, but no! He wasn't going to lose!

Ugh.

He hated to say it, but he just couldn't win this battle.

Turning his head away, Seto squeezed his dried-out eyes tightly shut, grunting ever so slightly in pain and irritation.

Milaya, Kisara's cat, purred and rolled over onto the papers spread out across the desk in Seto's home office, quite satisfied with herself for defeating the great and mighty Kaiba in a staring-contest to the death.

The gorgeous cat had come to the decision that if she had to be taken from the condo she'd just come to think of as home, then she was going to take up whatever was the most valuable real estate in the new home. That, sadly for Seto, was right on top of whatever it was he happened to be involved with. It was as if she _knew_ it was Kaiba's idea to move Kisara into the Kaiba Estate, and was making him pay for the discomfort she had to go through. For the past week, Seto had had to put up with her attacking his printer, rolling in whatever papers he had in front of him, and batting random things like pencils and bottle caps off of his desk at just the wrong moment.

Mokuba said she was just being a cat, but Seto knew better. He knew intelligence when he saw it, even when it was staring out of a face covered in fur and bearing whiskers. Milaya knew what she was doing. Seto had absolutely no doubt about that, and Kisara never disagreed with him when he gave his opinion on the cat's motives.

_Sadistic feline_.

Seto smirked and rubbed the cat behind her velvety ears, earning another purr and a lick.

"Where can we find your owner, hm?" he asked the cat, continuing to pet her. He wasn't going to be getting any more work done today, anyway. Not with Milaya lolling around on his desk.

Milaya sneezed, causing Seto to figure that if she knew where Kisara was, she wasn't planning on telling him.

Seto set out on his own to find Kisara after doing his best to extract some of the more important documents out from under her cat who'd been rather less than obliging in letting him. He'd received a love nip at the base of his thumb and was looking at it as he walked along, watching the indentations disappearing slowly from his skin.

"That is _so_ not fair!"

Seto jumped as the giggle-filled roar echoed through the hallway from Mokuba's old playroom. He heard what sounded like Kisara chattering back at his brother and headed that way to investigate.

Kisara and Mokuba were sitting in the middle of the toy-filled room. It was actually a suite of rooms that Mokuba had been given after Gozaburo's death to hold all of the games, stuffed animals, and what-nots that his older brother had practically thrown at him, trying to make up for their adoptive father's (and his own, at the time) lack of affection and the toy-drought they had both gone through. Mokuba had grown out of most of the stuff in the suite, and Seto had thought that Mokuba had forsaken the rooms almost entirely. Apparently not.

"Seto, Kisara's a cheat!" Mokuba accused, seeing his brother in the doorway. The mischievous spark in his eye told Seto that Mokuba was just having a bit of fun (luckily for Kisara's job), but Seto raised his eyebrow at Kisara and adopted a stern ton as he asked, "Is that true, Ms. Belikova?"

Kisara shook her head good-humoredly as Mokuba answered for her, "It is! She beat me with my own deck, for gods' sakes!"

Seto winced. That Mokuba wasn't the best duelist didn't bother him all that much, but really. To lose to someone who was using your own deck? That was just ludicrous.

Seto sent Mokuba a mild glare. Mokuba responded with sticking his tongue out at him before suddenly asking, "Where's the cat?"

Even though Seto had never expected him to be, Mokuba wasn't in the least bit put out with suddenly having a possibly long-term house guest. If anything he'd been overjoyed, especially when he'd seen Milaya's bewhiskered face and flashing blue eyes staring maliciously out of her carrier that she'd been moved into after the police car (the cat carrier had escaped with only a few dents and was still functional). Mokuba hadn't ever had any pets other than a series of goldfish when he was ten and eleven that had all ended up flushed down the toilet for one reason or another. The empty fish tank was actually in one of these rooms, hidden behind a large pile of teddy bears and under several variations of the Monopoly game (they never played that anymore since Seto was even better at that than he was at Duel Monsters, leaving Mokuba bankrupt before he could so much as get a house to his name).

"She's in my office. Again," Seto deliberately added.

Kisara didn't even pretend to feel any shame, and only shrugged. She'd warned him. If he walked into his office to find the cat firmly planted on his keyboard, causing a bevy of error messages to pop up in the screen, then it was his own fault for leaving the door open. Never mind that half the time the door _was_ closed and the cat was still waiting for him, having passed the time chewing all the labeled tabs off his manila folders.

Mokuba stood up. "In lieu of my horrendous loss," he started formally, "I do believe I will dismiss myself and go check on Ms. Milaya." He bowed comically to Kisara who waved him away, and then bounded past his brother to go find the Siberian. Watching him eagerly scamper off, Seto wondered if he was the culprit behind Milaya being ever-present in his office.

"Your brother is an oddball," Kisara stated after a few moments, starting to collect the Duel Monsters cards that she and Mokuba had left spread across the floor between them.

"Believe me, I know," Seto grumbled, leaning casually against the doorframe. "Why are you playing Duel Monsters?" She didn't even have a deck anymore, and the police didn't seem to think that there was any chance of getting it back. Why would she want to be reminded of that?

"Oh, Mokuba's offered to let me use his deck for the Duel Disk testing, so we were getting me used to it," Kisara answered offhand. She'd had to sit out for the week, coming to Kaiba Corp. only to wind up sitting with Mokuba and/or the technicians in the observation area in whatever Block they were using that day. She was eager to get back to actual work.

_More like getting Mokuba used to his deck_, Seto thought, remembering how, once again, Mokuba had chosen to switch up his cards, unable to find a stable combination of monsters, traps, and spell cards that he could, or rather would, work with.

"We can get you new ones. Kaiba Corp. has practically every card at its disposal for its duelists," Seto offered.

Kisara bit her lip as she slowly began to shake her head. She stopped, and, looking up at him, said, "I don't mean to offend you or KC or anything, but I think I'd rather find my own cards to build up a deck." After a moment, Seto nodded.

"Alright," he replied sterilely. He didn't feel insulted (too much), but he didn't quite understand her need to find the cards herself, either.

"I heard some kids at school saying that Yugi Moto has a card shop. Maybe I'll go there," Kisara mused, shuffling Mokuba's back into their carrying case.

Raising his eyebrows, Seto informed her, "It's actually his grandfather's store, and it's pathetic. Family-owned… Hole-in-the-wall… That sort of thing."

Kisara smiled cheekily. "That's what I'm looking for."

He narrowed his eyes. "Of course you are."

"Don't look at me like that, Mr. Big-Corporate-Tyrant," Kisara teasingly snapped as she stood up, a smile tugging at her mouth.

"It's not like you're going to find anything there that you can't with me," Seto argued, realizing that it really did bug him for her to reject his offer.

Kisara shrugged and came to stand in front of him, trying to hide a smile. "You never know," she trailed off.

"Yes, I do," Seto growled petulantly, crossing his arms in defiance.

Kisara laughed and poked Seto in the ribs. He swayed stiffly and Kisara was able to detect a slight pout on his face. She found it adorable and was finally able to see some family resemblance between him and Mokuba.

"Come on, Seto. It's better than my going straight to Uncle Peggy for new cards, isn't it?" she cajoled, taking advantage of his dislike for Pegasus.

Seto blinked and then grimaced as if he'd tasted something incredibly sour. "Fine," he bitterly bit out. "I'll get one of my drivers to take you there whenever you're ready."

"Aren't you going to take me?" Kisara asked, surprised.

Seto's lips twisted a bit, not in a smile. "Yugi's grandfather and I have shared a not-so-pleasant experience, especially on his side of it. I wouldn't want to give the old man a heart attack." _Another one, that is_, he thought to himself.

Kisara watched him with interest for a moment, her eyebrows slightly quirked. "Well… I'm ready to go now, if that'll be okay."

Seto nodded, still not exactly happy with Kisara's decision to go. "I'll have Roland find someone to get you to the Game Shop."

**Thanks for reading! I hope things are starting to become clearer in this fic; it's all been rolling around in my head for so long that sometimes I find it hard to discern between what **_**I**_** know and what **_**you guys**_** know. Anything else I have to say about this chapter can be found on my blog (just a bit of rambling this time; nothing too important for the moment).**

**Heh, I had a dream last night that I'd finally gotten this published and my inbox was flooded with reviews. Anyone want to help make that a dream a reality?**


	14. Tonight Feels

**Wow. Only two months between updates. I must be getting quicker at this. **

**Enjoy the chapter!**

Yugi was jittery all through dinner, his eyes shooting across the table at Mahad and then back down again at his plate, then the whole process would repeat. Several times he almost considered letting Yami take over for his nerves' sakes, but while his grandpa knew about the ancient pharaoh, Yugi's mom didn't, and both Yugi and Yami would like to keep it that way.

At the moment, his mother was chatting pleasantly enough with Yugi's new friend from school. He was different from her son's other friends. Stiffer, more awkward. He didn't really seem like he wanted to be there at all. Yugi's mom herself kept glancing between her son, his friend, her own seemingly oblivious father-in-law, and back to Mahad. While Joey, Tristan, and Duke were a handful (especially when all three were together), Yugi's mom would much rather have them over than this one silent, brooding "friend" that had suddenly appeared on their doorstep and was now going to stay the night.

And what kind of person dyed their hair purple?

Sensing his mother's mistrust of Mahad, Yugi plowed through his meal, silently urged Mahad to do the same, and excused the two of them as quickly as possible.

Solomon didn't mind the new kid too much. Yeah, the hair was most certainly odd, but he was familiar in a way. It was like during the days before he handed over his deck to Yugi when he would occasionally flip through it, reminding himself of the great duelist he had been.

_Oh well_, Solomon thought, pushing himself away from the table. _Time to move on from the past._

"I'm going to go back out to the shop and see if I can catch any stragglers," he informed his daughter-in-law.

She nodded but seemed troubled by something. Probably the new kid. Solomon had been a little weirded out by him at first as well, but it was all good now. Yugi's mother was the protective type, so he knew better than to reassure her about Mahad. She'd find her own way to liking him, or not.

Solomon trundled out to the storefront. It was almost dark outside and there was very little chance of anyone popping by to purchase any Duel Monster cards, but you never knew. And tonight just felt like a good night to stay open for a little bit longer.

* * *

Kisara was still chuckling to herself at the thought of Seto waiting in the car for her to finish her shopping. He'd decided to come along anyway even though she'd warned him that it might take a while for her to peruse everything (and even then she knew she may not find herself with a full deck by the end of it), but Seto had just nodded, not looking her in the eye, and insisted on tagging along, only to sit in the backseat for the duration. As she'd closed the car door on him, she swore she heard him mutter to himself, "Maybe I should just drive away?"

Kisara knew he wouldn't, or, rather, that he _probably_ wouldn't.

He'd become more and more quiet the closer they'd gotten to the store. She'd attempted to coax out of him whatever it had been that was making him so bent out of shape, but he'd refused to say anything on the matter. Pegasus had warned Kisara when he'd told her about the Moto's shop that Seto might not react well to it, but he hadn't given specifics on it either. He'd just told her to ask Seto to take her there sometime and to say that she'd heard some of the kids at school talking about it.

Kisara knew better than to trust her godfather completely; she wasn't in the least bit stupid. But she was curious, and, in truth, it was fun finding out what made Seto Kaiba tick.

She smiled a bit to herself as she pulled her black faux-fur hat closer down over her ears. It was colder tonight than it had been for the past few weeks, and it was starting to rain as well, so Kisara had all of her long white hair tucked up in the hat to keep it dry.

For some reason, probably whatever it was that was making him so awkward and moody, Seto had had his driver park down the block from the store, though they had still been close enough to see some detail through the windows of the shop.

It was actually getting to be fairly late, and Kisara had been surprised that Yugi's grandfather kept his shop open 'til such an hour. Perhaps he needed to in order to keep the business afloat if it was really as small and badly-off as Seto had indicated (though it was also rather possible that Seto's idea of badly-off was a much different idea from anyone else's).

Kisara smiled again to herself and then saw a shadow approaching the shop's door from the inside. She jogged up to it, knocking on the glass and catching Solomon Moto just before he flipped the 'open' sign around to 'closed.' The old man was more than surprised to see the girl on the other side of the glass door.

He opened the door a few inches and asked, "Is there something you need, miss?"

"Yes." Kisara gave a small laugh and winced her features as she smiled, showing that she knew how absurd her coming request was going to be. "Sorry to be so late, but could I possibly convince you to keep your shop open just a _little_ bit longer before you go home? I'm in rather desperate need of deck, you see."

Solomon looked the girl over. Pale. But pretty. And she had a nice smile. How could the old man resist it when a young lady looked at him like that?

"Sure. Come on in," he invited, pulling the door open for her.

Kisara's eyes lit up. "Thank you so much."

* * *

Seto didn't think he'd ever had to wait in his own car for anything. Mokuba had plenty of times, and now Seto could see evidence of that which he'd never noticed before: a scuff mark on the back of one of the front seats where Mokuba must have spent hours kicking, an old, crumpled test that the kid had gotten a 98% on peeking out from between Seto's feet with multiple dirty footprints scattered over its surface as well as several doodles of duel monsters done in Mokuba's hand, and a small spill from one of those grape slushies the kid favored from the mall on the door's armrest. It was still sticky when Seto touched it.

He decided right then to ban food from the car for the rest of eternity and to order a thorough cleaning of it in the near future.

He just might ban talking in the car, too. Roland and the driver had been having a hushed, hurried conversation with each other for the past several minutes. Finally Seto had to demand, "What's going on, Roland?"

The assistant jumped. "Uh." He'd taken his sunglasses off, showing his small, dark eyes off to the world. "Well, sir, up here we've kind of noticed that the car is listing to one side, and we're wondering if we might have a flat or a slow leak."

_Oh for gods' sakes_. "Then why don't you two get out and _see_, Roland?"

"Right, yes, sir!" They both hopped out at lightning speed. Seto followed as well, into the near-freezing night.

Something was just itching at him tonight. Tonight felt wrong. He'd thought it had started with Kisara's "rejection" of his offer that Kaiba Corporation refit her with a new deck. But now that he'd had time to think about it, while he'd been _waiting in the car_, he realized that that had really very little to do with it. Something else was off about tonight. Something that had Seto ready to tear out his hair or rip his clothes to shreds or peel off his own face. He wanted either to scream or to fall into a silence that neither he nor anyone else could ever crawl out of.

He couldn't stand it. Leaving Roland and the driver to the tire, he strode off to the Game Shop, not caring any longer whether he'd be welcome there or not. He was Seto Kaiba, after all, and he was about to go insane if he didn't get to Kisara right now.

* * *

"_You_ were the one who broke into Kisara's apartment?" Yugi choked out. Oh gods. He was sharing his bedroom with a felon.

_Don't react so badly_, Yami said, though there was a detectable thread of doubt and discomfort even in his mind.

_He's a criminal, and we've let him in our house!_ Yugi shrieked inwardly. _Is there any other way to react?_

"Please, don't judge me too quickly," Mahad quietly murmured.

While Yugi really wanted to come back with something about how he was supposed to _not_ judge him immediately after such a confession, he knew that he didn't actually know all that much about the break-in, just a handful of unsubstantiated rumors flowing through the school's hallway like slippery little fish flitting through obliging canals.

"Can you tell me why you broke into her home, then?" Yugi asked, doing his best to keep a level tone.

Mahad slowly reached back into his inner jacket pocket, watching Yugi somewhat worriedly, and then pulled out a full deck.

"It's hers," he said.

_He stole her deck?_ Yami puzzled.

_Apparently. I wonder what she has in it that was worth taking it_. Yugi turned his questioning eyes to Mahad.

"I thought that she would have something that could help me to understand how she stands in this world, but she didn't have it. At least, not mixed in with the rest of these." Mahad scowled mildly down at the cards.

"What were you looking for?"

"It may not make sense yet, but it's urgent that I discover whether or not she has come in contact with the final Blue-Eyes White Dragon card, the one Seto Kaiba does not have."

Yugi snorted and chuckled, nearly gagging himself. "That was actually what you were looking for? Why on earth would you think Kisara has that?"

The purple-haired teen seemed beyond confused at his reaction.

"It's just, I know for a fact that Kisara doesn't have that card," Yugi explained. "My grandpa, the man you met downstairs, does. That last Blue-Eyes belongs to him."

Mahad's entire body spasmed, becoming rigid and causing him to lean suddenly forward in Yugi's direction.

"Your grandfather has the remaining Blue-Eyes White Dragon card?" Yugi doubted it was possible for Mahad's aquamarine eyes to become any wider. "I… believe this is what one might consider to be a stroke of luck." For the first time, Yugi saw the corners of Mahad's mouth turn up in _delight_.

"I should warn you," Yugi started off, "it's not in the best of conditions. Kaiba tore it in half a while ago because he couldn't use it."

"Really? This may show some hope for getting him on our side as well, despite the time he seems to be spending with _her_," Mahad mused.

"What's wrong with Kisara?" Yugi asked.

"I will explain in just a second," Mahad answered, standing up as he did so. "Before that though, would you go and get the remains of the card from your grandfather. I'd like to secure them while we have the chance."

* * *

Solomon was quite enjoying his time with the pretty girl who turned out to know quite a bit about Duel Monsters, beyond even just the game. She knew about the original concept being from Egypt, how the cards were made and marketed, and even seemed to have some knowledge about the newfangled holograms that Kaiba kid had invented and was always tinkering with.

At the moment, he was near to crying from the laughter she had gotten out of him by telling him of all the crazy fusions of Duel Monsters she had seen while playing the game. A whole bunch of them involved Kuriboh and some creature that was usually considered to be one of the fiercest around. But at the moment, the image of a Shining Friendship combined with a Monster Cat was at the forefront of Solomon's thoughts.

"I don't even know why they did it!" Kitty went on with her anecdote. "It didn't even prove useful in the long run."

It took a minute for Solomon to calm down, during which time Kitty went on looking through his wares. She'd already chosen several packets with the basic spell and trap cards needed when starting a deck. From what Solomon had been able to find out, it seemed that the girl needed to create an entirely new deck for herself. For someone with such knowledge, Solomon would have thought that she'd already have a deck she was really comfortable and skilled with.

Then again, he'd heard of some people who once they got really comfortable with their cards they switched everything up again to give themselves a challenge. The idea didn't appeal to Solomon himself, but he thought he could in some ways appreciate it. But if that were the case here, why would she need the fundamental cards like Monster Reborn?

She kept getting drawn back to the light and dragon monsters in his rare cards case again and again. Every time Solomon was just about to offer her a deal on a couple of those cards, she'd shoot off in a new direction, almost as if she knew but didn't know what she was looking for.

"So," Solomon started once he's gotten control of himself, "do you have some theme you're working to cultivate in your new deck, Kitty?"

"No. I can't say I that I do. Heh, I probably should have had a battle plan before I came in and took up all your time."

"Oh, no, don't worry about that, my dear. I just hope I can help you get something assembled before you need to duel again. You did say that it's rather urgent for you to get a deck, yes?"

"I did. Yeah." Once again, she'd gone back to her post at the rare cards case, specifically to focus in on his Alexandrite Dragon, a light dragon with a very good attack power but extremely lacking in defense or special effects. Plus, in Solomon's opinion, the dragon was a bit too masculine and brutal-seeming for the charming, luminous girl looking at it. Several other dragons popped into his mind, many of them light-type, but he rejected them all immediately for one "flaw" or another.

Solomon was suddenly facing a dilemma. The more he thought about it, there was only one monster that he thought would even come close to fitting with this particular customer, but…

He had made a deal with Pegasus recently. At the time, he thought that it was a deal that would end up completely benefitting himself, and his grandson. But if Solomon were to follow the set terms as he agreed he would, that may not end up being the case.

Kisara had danced away from the case again and was across the room. As he debated with himself and watched her, Kitty began rearranging her hate with her gloved hands, twisting it to get it to sit right. She ended up removing her hat entirely, allowing her hair to fall out and swing across her back, and Solomon's mind was made for him.

"Miss? Could you wait here just a second, please? I think I have something that might interest you."

Kisara's blue eyes sparkled with interest as she watched the old man scurry from the room and through a curtain in the back corner. When he returned, he was holding a small wooden box tight to his chest and had a slightly conflicted expression still on his face. But when he saw the glowing cobalt eyes and pure white hair that couldn't possibly be replicated by any sort of bleaching or coloring, he knew he was doing the right thing.

'_Solomon, I will fix your poor, ripped-up Blue-Eyes White Dragon card using Industrial Illusions' newly developed process for free, if you will agree to two conditions. Now, keep in mind, Grandpa Moto, that you would never be able to afford to have this done on your own dime. Ever. The conditions are, one, you wait for at least a year before revealing or giving it to your Yugi-boy. Two, during that time, if someone might… catch your fancy in regards to the card, you will give it to them if they seem right for it. Do we have a deal?'_ Those had been Pegasus's words a couple months ago. Solomon had wondered often during that time what had been going on in that strange man's head, and even now he had to consider the possibility that Pegasus had planned this meeting with Kitty. But a deal was a deal… and this did feel right.

"I don't think I'm going to be able to interest you with anything else I have here," Solomon admitted, not exactly happy having to deprecate the scope of his own shop. "So how about we wrap up your purchase and I add in this card for free." He placed the box on the table next to the small pile that she'd reserved.

"You don't have to do that, Mr. Moto. I'd be happy to buy it—"

"No, really. I have an arrangement, you see. Please, Kitty, take it."

"Thank you... May I see what it is?" She leaned forward expectantly.

Solomon opened the box and Kisara staggered and had to use the counter to keep from sinking to the floor.

She'd seen Seto's Blue-Eyes White Dragons plenty of times by now, and when she'd been a child and visiting her godfather, she'd seem a couple of them then as well. But seeing a copy in a place like this was not something she was prepared for in the least.

"I can't—"

Solomon pressed the card into her gloved hand and immediately pulled away, pretending not to hear her protest as he rung up her other cards.

He gave her the total and placed her cards in a small bag, asking her if that was all she needed.

Slowly she shook her head and paid him. She placed the Blue-Eyes in with the others and began to leave.

A pair of footsteps came thundering down the stairs when Kisara was halfway to the door. Turning around, she saw Mahad framed in the door to the stairs with Yugi peeking over his shoulder from behind.

All three teens froze and Mahad and Kisara both leaned down into slight crouches, both ready to attack or defend.

"Oh, hello, boys. Do you need something?"

"Yeah, Grandpa," Yugi began," would it be possible to see your—"

Seto exploded in through the shop door. For a moment he looked around, as if he didn't understand his own the reason for his volatile entrance, and then his eyes alighted on the purple-haired freak from school, and he too immediately went on guard.

"Are you finished, Kisara?" he gritted out, not removing his eyes from Mahad for an instant. Mahad himself couldn't decide which potential adversary to focus on and looked sporadically between the two. Yugi watched his bewildered grandfather, trying to think up something to tell him in order to explain the situation. The truth didn't seem to be an option, especially since he hardly knew what that was himself.

Kisara said, "Yeah," and before anyone could do anything more, Seto grabbed her hand and they both whisked out the door.

The shop's bell rang as it closed, signaling the pair's exit.

* * *

Roland and Kaiba's driver were still fixing the leak they'd found when Seto and Kisara blew out of the Game Shop.

"We'll be ready in a few more minutes, Mr. Kaiba," Roland said, his suit jacket draped over the roof of the car and his sleeves rolled up to his elbows.

"Make it one more minute, Roland," Seto ordered.

"Fixed it!" the driver cried, popping up from the other side of the car. "We just need a moment to get everything packed up and we'll be on our way, sir."

Seto nodded and he and Kisara swung into the backseat.

"You kind of barged in there," Kisara unexpectedly teased as he closed the door behind them.

"I got a bad feeling, and then that Mahad guy showed up, so it's a good thing I barged in, don't you think? We wouldn't want you starting a brawl in the Moto's shop," Seto bit off.

"You just got tired of waiting in the car," Kisara accused with a laugh. The tone of it was a little off, a bit too lilting and out-of-control.

"I did not."

"Did, too. That's kind of cute. I'm seeing more and more similarities between you and your brother," she continued.

Seto glared at her. "Funny. I'm seeing more and more of my brother in _you_ as well."

"You can't blame us. We just can't help but mess with you, Seto."

Seto grunted and turned to look out the window.

"Oh. Don't be mad, Seto." Kisara leaned over to place an apologetic peck on his cheek.

Seto turned his head at the last moment to snap that he _wasn't_ mad, and Kisara's lips ended up catching the right corner of his mouth. Neither of them immediately pulled away.

**Thanks for reading! Shorter update with evil cliffhanger-ish ending, but hopefully it will get me back into the swing of things. Next chapter will be devoted to filling in the holes left by the vagueness of chapter thirteen, so don't think I've forgotten about that. It's time will come!**

**For reviewers who have their PM option disabled, I'm unable to respond to you because of that, just so you know. Sorry. I love all your reviews, and I always enjoy responding to them and answering any questions you guys might have… I just can't when you have your PMs turned off :(. (I promise I won't spam you :).)**


	15. Freedom and Choices

**A very talkative chapter. Especially on Mahad's part. That boy's got some explaining to do. **

Mahad stormed back up to Yugi's bedroom, giving off more emotion than he ever had since the moment he arrived in Domino. They had been maybe ten seconds too late, and now Kisara had the last Blue-Eyes White Dragon card. This was obviously not settling well with the purple-haired teenager.

"He gave her the card because he thought it _fit_ her?" Incredulousness poured off of his words.

Yugi shrugged as he walked into the room behind Mahad, somewhat irritated at the way Mahad was talking about his grandfather. "That's the way my grandpa thinks sometimes. He probably wanted to give it to me—"

"Then why didn't he?" Mahad snapped. He was running his hands up and down his arm and shifting his shoulders continuously. Yugi had the feeling that if Seto hadn't come in as backup and instigated such a swift retreat Mahad might have made an attempt to wrest the card away from Kisara the moment he learned that she had taken it.

Yugi was also curious as to why his grandfather hadn't given him the repaired card (he hadn't even been aware that it had been mended), and he was going to make a point of finding out what on earth had been going on with his grandpa behind his back. But he would wait for Mahad to leave before he did that. With him around it might turn more into an interrogation rather than the chat Yugi had planned.

"What was so bad about Kitty back then?" Yugi had to ask. That was what all this confrontation was stemming from, and maybe he could finally get an answer to Yami's, and now Mahad's, paranoid behavior.

Mahad slowly turned to look Yugi straight in the eye with such a serious and discerning look that Yugi knew what he was about to say wasn't actually meant for him but for the pharaoh.

"Kisara was a threat to your kingship," he began. "She had the strongest monster yet to be found and she attached herself to the one person who could oppose you as the ruler."

"Seto," Yugi confirmed. Mahad nodded.

"In fact, until Kisara showed up it wasn't even known that Seto was next in line to the thrown through his father, your uncle who ended up betraying you, also around the time Kisara showed up. And, it turned out that Kisara and Seto had met before in their youth for a brief time, or so they said. Everything had a suspicious air to it, especially when Kisara started isolating Seto."

"That showed up in the memory you showed us," Yugi commented. Again Mahad nodded.

"You'd—"

"Could you please refer to him as 'the pharaoh'? He's listening," Yugi tapped the Millennium Puzzle, "but so am I, and it gets a bit confusing. So if you wouldn't mind…?"

"…The pharaoh had sent me on a small-scale mission to do my best to convince Kisara in any way possible to leave quietly and not involve Seto in it."

_Ask Mahad for me why there was such an emphasis on keeping Seto out of the picture_. Yugi asked Yami's question.

Mahad's cold face got a slight sour expression. "By this time Seto, his position in regards to the throne, and the multiple services he'd done for the Pharaoh and for Egypt had become well-known. His popularity didn't match that of the Pharaoh's, but he was still considered in many ways to be the champion of the people. Not to mention the power that goes with being the High Priest of the city."

Yugi's brows rose. It was hard for him, and for Yami, to see Seto in such a spiritual position.

Mahad continued, "While none of this was a problem in itself, his attachment to Kisara made it into one. As I said, she was strong. Again this wouldn't have been a problem, but she was stubborn. She had her own ideas as to what the monsters should, or shouldn't, be used for, and wouldn't let _herself_ be used in any way that didn't correspond with those ideas, and she wouldn't let her dragon be used at all unless Seto was there."

Yugi frowned. "What was so wrong with her having opinions?" he asked carefully.

Mahad sensed that he was close to alienating the mediator between himself and the Pharaoh, who at the moment didn't even seem all that interested in what was going on, or at least wasn't speaking up. So Mahad was gentle as he went on with his explanations. "No offense, Yugi, but until you have the responsibility of an entire country's prosperity on your shoulders, I don't think you can appreciate the need to constantly be in fear of others with powers, others with opinions different from yours, and especially others with both."

"It just doesn't seem like the right way to go about doing things," Yugi responded, blushing slightly at his implied ignorance.

"It may not have been," Mahad agreed. "But it was all we felt we could do at the time."

"What ended up happening?" Yugi asked.

"That memory I showed you was from shortly before Kisara died. That is what finally happened."

Yugi gasped. It wasn't unreasonable that Kisara might have died and then come back again to this time. Not everyone from back then was confined within a Millennium Item, obviously. Just look at Kaiba. But the idea that Kisara had already died was still disturbing, even if it had occurred several thousand years ago.

_What killed her?_ Yami asked, finally breaking into the conversation. There was a sense of urgency in his tone. Yugi relayed the question.

"Seto's father Aknadin killed her." Mahad made as if he were to add something more but paused and seemed to carefully consider something before going on. "The pharaoh and I made the decision to let her die."

Yugi was overcome by a wave of dizziness that didn't originate from himself and stumbled over to his bed before he fell.

His vision started to become hazy and he felt almost like throwing up. In the background to these sensations he could hear Mahad's voice calling, "_Pharaoh… Pharaoh…!_"

* * *

"_Pharaoh," Mahad began. "What should we do?"_

_The fight between Aknadin and Seto with Kisara at his side had begun. In hindsight, the Pharaoh felt he should have expected Aknadin and his allies to do something like this. Seto and Kisara had been such an effective team in gathering the other monsters that they no doubt had been causing a great amount of problems for their side. And they probably wanted the Blue-Eyes White Dragon to be on their side just as much as the pharaoh did._

_He snorted. If only he could warn them that the Blue-Eyes was on no one's side but the Blue-Eyes', and that side just so happened to include Seto, the pharaoh's cousin, Aknadin's son, and next in line to the throne. _

_Kisara had ruined it all with her stubbornness and refusal to serve under him. Even her precious Seto obeyed his commands, or he had until she'd shown up. Why couldn't she have followed the priest's example instead of the reverse occurring?_

_The fight was not going well for the priest and dragon, and it gave the pharaoh a momentary thrill of satisfaction. It was starting to become more and more clear, however, that unless the pharaoh and his men interfered, both Aknadin and Kisara would destroy themselves as they both tried to get the upper hand._

_Kisara and her dragon were an amazing tool at Egypt's disposal… but how long they would choose to remain such was a question that the pharaoh feared answering. And what would happen when she decided to run and take Seto with her was one that he avoided at all cost, even more than the first. He'd have to do something then._

_Or he could just let things proceed right here and now and have his troubles concerning her dealt with without any effort on his part._

_Did he really want to become that sort of king? Sacrifices for the greater good were necessary in his position, but Kisara had made it clear that she would be the one to choose what she sacrificed herself for, and that had begun to sink in with the pharaoh. She and her ideas had gotten so far under his skin during the nights he stayed up thinking about them that they had actually begun to corrupt him from the inside out._

_He couldn't decide this on his own. He turned to Mahad with eyes he didn't know were desperate. With them, he begged for Mahad to tell him what to do. Mahad's perspective was important and special. He had at one point been a complete human like the pharaoh and Seto, but now he was the complete essence of a monster, the Dark Magician. He was both the possessed and the possessor. Even Kisara couldn't claim that. He would know what to do._

_After a moment of starring into the pharaoh's eyes, Mahad nodded and then returned his attention to the battle that they viewed from a distant sand dune. That was all he did, and that was all the pharaoh or his soldiers did either. They watched as Kisara died, as she made the choice, her own choice, to sacrifice herself for Seto's life. The pharaoh almost felt vindicated as he watched her choose her own fate. She couldn't blame him for taking that away from her._

_But even as the arrow that would take her life sped towards her, the pharaoh felt her eyes, the cobalt eyes that she and Seto alone shared among all his subjects he had come in contact with, and he felt their knowledge and their accusation up until the point when the arrow ripped through her chest and she fell back into her priest's arms._

* * *

_My first memory from back my past, and it's of me leaving a girl to her death_. Yami's words brought Yugi back to consciousness.

He had collapsed in the blankets of his bed. Mahad was in the swivel chair that he had wheeled over while Yugi had been passed out and was watching him closely with an uncomfortably intense level of concern.

Yugi scooched away across the mattress and brought himself to sit cross-legged in the middle of his bed, making sure to keep Mahad in his sight.

_Yami, are you okay?_ he asked.

_No._

It was true. Yami's depression was almost crippling, extending to Yugi, making it difficult for him to focus on anything but the darkness of life. Yugi wanted to sympathize with him, but he couldn't forget how in the vision Yami had viewed Kisara as the enemy, even as she'd been fighting for her and Kaiba's lives. True, he'd required another's opinion in deciding her fate, but he'd almost seemed relieved to finally no longer have to "deal" with her. She couldn't have been that bad… could she?

"Mahad." The boy with the aquamarine eyes, the boy who Yami had referred to as _the_ Dark Magician in the past, leaned forward, seeming eager to do something for his pharaoh and his host. "Will you answer some more questions for me?"

"Of course. What is it that you wish to know? I will do my best to explain everything to you."

"Yami, in this life, had an idea about Kisara earlier, before you came to Domino," Yugi started hesitantly. "It had something to do with how Kisara was both innocent and guilty of the strange feelings of unease she elicited in him. Can you explain _that?_"

Mahad took a moment before answering. He was fiddling with the card he'd first used to show Yami and Yugi the conversation between himself and the pharaoh regarding Kisara's interference.

"I assume that your vision showed you what I am?" Yugi nodded. "This," Mahad held up the Dark Magician card, "is my card. It's different from all the other cards like it. It's _mine_," he emphasized. "In a way, it's a throwback to the past. It holds all my memories and all of my feelings from back then. I only know who I was because of this card." Mahad gave a brief, cheerless chuckle, the first Yami had heard from him. "Before the Collectors brought me in contact with this card, I was just an ordinary high school student, living with my parents and going to school just like everyone else. I wasn't even a fan of Duel Monsters."

"The Collectors?" Yugi had never heard of them before. Were they also from the pharaoh's time?

Mahad's face turned severe. "They are people know about people like me. About people like Kisara. They have somehow realized that those who were in possession of the Duel Monsters in the past are back again, and still have that possession."

Yami seemed to gasp with wonder in the Puzzle. _They exist? There are more?_

Yugi could hardly believe it either. He couldn't call Mahad crazy, not when he had the pharaoh speaking to him inside his head, and not when he and his friends had come to pretty much that very conclusion in regards to Kisara. They may not have pursued it, but they had come to it. Still, it all seemed so… _fantastical_. Real-life Duel Monsters in the present day.

"So, Kisara hasn't rediscovered her memories yet? She's still in the dark about what she was?" And apparently still was.

Mahad scowled and snarled, "She _hadn't_, and she may not ever have had we gotten that card before she did."

"But how do we know that that was the card? How do we know it's not one of Kaiba's?" Yugi pressed. Mahad seemed all too willing to come to conclusions about Kisara that had no basis, or none that Yugi could see at least.

"Even if that were the case," Mahad said, "she's so close to Seto that it would only be a matter of time before she came in contact with those ones anyway. Besides, I could tell it wasn't those ones. The stronger a monster that a person possesses in this life, the easier it is to tell which cards and which persons are like us, once we become aware ourselves. The cards Seto keeps are not the ones necessary for Kisara to access her full self. I know that. Therefore, it was only the card that Seto didn't have that would have worked."

Yugi ran his hands over his face, still feeling bogged down by the effects of the vision.

"You said that the card had been ruined earlier," Mahad suddenly brought up.

Yugi blinked. "Yeah. I have no clue when it could have been fixed."

"Pegasus is the one who owns the company that does such repairs, yes?"

"Yes. Why?" Where was Mahad going with this?

"Pegasus has been to visit Kisara many times over the past few months. Her father is working with the Collectors. It seems possible that perhaps this Pegasus could also have been brought into the mix and placed this card in her path."

Something clicked in Yugi's mind. Pegasus's visit to the Game Shop and his giving Yugi an envelope to give to his grandfather in the park could be connected to this. Also, his warning to be wary of strangers could possibly apply to Mahad. Yugi related these details to Mahad who agreed that they seemed suspicious. Yami was too deep in his self-loathing to offer anything, and Yugi chose to leave him there for the time being. They had things they needed to sort out now. Later Yugi would find the pharaoh and talk with him. He may not agree with what he did, but Yami was his friend and he didn't want any of his friends to suffer in the way Yami was suffering now.

"Could Kitty be working with Pegasus and her father, then?" Yugi asked. "Maybe she's part of this plot. Maybe she came to Domino for the card in the first place." Things seemed to be coming together a little too perfectly.

Mahad shook his head. "If she's at all intelligent, which both fortunately and unfortunately she is, she's well aware of Ivan's mental condition and will have nothing to do with him. That's why she's here actually, to get away from him."

"His mental condition?" Yugi asked.

"Ivan is insane."

Yugi pulled back a little. Well, that was blunt.

Mahad went on. "Beyond that, he is extremely jealous and possessive. The Collectors have taken advantage of that and are using him to get to his daughter. If he could get her to come home again, they're waiting and would immediately trap her and use her to track down the other reborn monsters so they could enslave them and use them to take control of the world. In truth, despite what Kisara's done in the past, I don't think she's chosen to be involved in any of this. She just wanted to get away from that man and start a new life."

Yugi thought for a moment. "Can't… can't we just talk to her? Reason with her? Get her to join our side?" Mahad's comments about Kisara in the past had reminded him of the vision. He didn't want what seemed like another witch-hunt to start, not now.

Mahad shook his head, again, this time seeming somewhat pained. "She has that card. That's the one that houses her memories, her being as the Blue-Eyes. Once she accesses what it has to offer her, if she hasn't already, she won't trust us an inch. She knows we plotted against her, she knows she plotted against us, and, most importantly, she knows that we let her die when it served our purposes."

The Millennium Puzzle around Yugi's neck shivered with the strength of Yami's disgust with himself. Yugi laid his hand on it and decided to wrap this discussion up so that he could attend to his pained friend.

"So what do we do now?" That was what this was all leading up to after all: What could they do?

Mahad took his time in answering. "Seto still has his own amount of power in this life; I could tell so the moment I came across him again. If he and Kisara teamed up, they could either do a lot of good or a lot of harm. Anyone who just had the Blue-Eyes under their control could. And I don't trust her." Mahad made sure to look Yugi directly in the eyes as he continued. "Kisara is able to get and keep herself away from the Collectors just fine on her own. We don't have to worry about that. What we_ do_ need to do now is get and keep Seto away from her. Even if the Collectors got their hands on her, I think the pharaoh and I would have enough power to stop the Blue-Eyes from doing any damage, especially if we got Seto on our side. If she and Seto join together, they would overwhelm us."

"What about the God Cards?" Yugi offered.

"They had no hosts in the past, so there's no one who would be able to hold their essences in this life. Even then we would have to find them first, and I don't believe we have the time to do so. Something is going to happen soon. I can feel it."

Yugi thought about what had just been said for a bit. "How do you know so much about the Collectors, Mahad? You said they presented you with your card, but that can't be all. And Ivan, how do you know about him?"

Mahad's face twitched. "Whoever holds your card controls you. The Collectors took this card back after exposing me to it and made me serve them, hunting down others like me and their corresponding Duel Monsters card. When they heard about Kisara and after they got Ivan on their side, they transferred the card's ownership to him so that he could use me in subduing his daughter. That's why I'm here. Or that's the _original_ reason why I'm here." Mahad seemed to smirk slightly.

"How'd you get your card back?" Yugi asked, a line between his eyebrows.

The smirk grew a bit. "I'm a Magician, aren't I?"

Yugi couldn't help but laugh, slightly in shock. For a moment, it sounded like Mahad joined him, but the purple-haired boy continued, "Neither the Collectors nor Ivan have any say over what I do now. I'm my own man, free to make my own choices. And my choice is to once again become the pharaoh's man."

Yugi's mirth left as he saw the depth of sincerity housed in that statement. Mahad truly meant it, from the bottom of his heart, and Yami seemed to respond a little, heartened by this person's faith in him despite what he had done.

Yugi and Mahad got ready for bed then. Yugi found some oversized articles of clothing that still were tight on Mahad's frame and bade the giant goodnight as he crawled into the sleeping bag Yugi's mom had laid out for him earlier.

After spending what seemed like hours speaking with Yami and getting them both to a place that would allow them to rest peacefully, Yugi allowed sleep to snake around him as it had with Mahad, who was now snoring up a storm, something Yugi had not expected. It was okay though.

What Yugi had a problem with as he finally sank into slumber was the fact that Mahad had seemed so happy and _free_ as he'd talked about getting to make his own choices independent from the Collectors and Ivan, but that had been the very thing he had condemned Kisara for in the past and had let her die because of…

**Thanks for reading! I know, I can't believe I updated so quickly either. Sorry that there wasn't any more Seto and Kisara fluff, but we'll be getting back to that fairly soon, like the next chapter, so stay tuned for that! I can't promise that it's going to be up as quickly as this one was, but I'll try. **

**And thank you to everyone who's reviewed so far. Because of you, this fic is exactly at 100 reviews at the time of publishment (which is not a word but should be).**


	16. Kisses, Kitties, and Flashbacks

**Again, sorry that it took so long to get this chapter out (you are all no doubt so sick of me constantly saying that over these past 2+ years). I don't know how fluffy this chapter is, but I tried. Enjoy!**

"_The Pharaoh has forbidden you being up here. I believe I've told you that before. Twice at least," the priest stated. _

_Kisara looked up at him from where she was lying on the roof of the pharaoh's palace. _

"_You, and others, have told me many more times than that, actually," she responded. Her eyes were glittering in the afternoon light of the Egyptian sun. That combined with her white robes, hair, and complexion made it almost painful for Seto to look at her for too long. But he couldn't take his eyes off of Kisara either._

_Several cats were up here with her, filling their fur with the warmth that caused the blocks of stone around them to radiate the heat in waves. The satisfied look on Kisara's features had her fitting in with the felines perfectly. She knew there was no possible way that Seto really meant to berate her. _

_Everyone, including Isis who had originally been on Seto and Kisara's side, had begun warning Seto that Kisara might just be using him. They'd noticed how thoroughly she had him wrapped around her fingers, but all had seemed surprised when Seto had made it clear that he was fully aware of Kisara's influence over him and didn't mind it in the least. _

_Some had reacted with outrage, others had just quietly walked away, unsure of how to proceed. Isis had tried to use her Millennium Necklace to see what would become of Seto's and Kisara's relationship. Seto had watched with eyes at half-mast with boredom until Isis had come back to herself, admitted to not being able to discern anything from the murky future, and gone on her way, rubbing a spot over her breastbone as she did so. _

_Seto had dismissed them all. Just as he told them, he was fully aware of what he was doing._

_He walked over and joined Kisara in the middle of the roof. He began to sweat immediately in the direct sunlight, surrounded by the heated stone. He removed his hat and unclipped his own white cape that Kisara immediately snagged. She wrapped it around her and Seto admitted to being awed in a disgusted way at her ability put up with the added warmth. He was still sweltering despite the discarded items. Nevertheless, he didn't ask to go down and when Kisara, thick cape and all, leaned against his side and bent her head to his shoulder, he didn't pull away._

_The air, despite its heat, was comfortable between them. They were soon relaxing against each other, practically limp in each others' arms. When Kisara tilted her head up and planted a brief kiss on Seto's cheek, the priest took it easily in stride. When he turned his face down and their lips met, it felt like the most natural and obvious thing for them to be doing. Even as the kiss grew and things went further, neither of them felt like they were supposed to be doing anything else, that they were supposed to be somewhere besides here and now with each other._

_A cat yowled mournfully on the other side of the roof even as they found happiness with each other._

* * *

Kisara's new deck had been proving to be a problem. It hadn't felt right yet and there hadn't been near enough cards in it to actually call it a deck after her visit to the Moto shop, so Kisara had agreed that the next day she would go to the Kaiba Corp. building and choose from the available cards that the corporation had to offer in order to bolster her deck. More light and dragon monsters had been added, as had some interesting choices in spell and trap cards.

After a few old-school, practice duels with Mokuba in his old playroom, Kisara had eventually become comfortable with it and went back to Duel Disk testing as soon as she could be fit in a time slot. In general, things had been going well for her, she'd still yet to lose a duel, but some of the monsters she'd chosen had yet to be tested on the new system, and that was where the real troubles had started cropping up.

Hyozanryu was the main issue. The dragon's origin myth was that it had been carved from a giant diamond, and Seto had tried to replicate that in its hologram. But with the new Duel Disks, Hyozanryu was blinding, and not in a dazzling sort of way. It literally hurt to look at it and the light rendered the shape of the dragon amorphous. The whole design of it needed to be dialed back.

So Seto had reconfigured the Hyozanryu projection in record time. But the next time Kisara had summoned it, it had set fire to the sensors with its overabundance of glitz. That would have been fine if some idiot hadn't called the Domino City Fire Department. By the time the DCFD arrived, Seto's people had had the blazes out for ten minutes at least. That had been hours ago. But the fire department, after bumbling around in the lobby when they were unable to find a way reach the underground block that the fire had occurred in, had cordoned off the area in order to make sure that another fire wouldn't break out.

_How are they going to make sure another fire won't start when they don't understand how the first ones did?_ Seto thought.

Now he and Kisara were waiting in his office for everything to calm down below. He was brooding while simultaneously taking care of some paperwork that had been pushed to the back burner in favor of all the exciting Duel Disk work that had needed his attention. Kisara had borrowed Mokuba's laptop and whenever Seto looked up she seemed to be frowning just a little bit more. He finally couldn't help but ask what the problem was, thinking it might be something with a school project.

Kisara shook her head at that notion. "No. Alec was having a little problem with the painting, not knowing what to do with it and sent me an email to rant about it. But that's not the problem." She made a sound of disgust and closed the laptop, setting it on the low table in front of the couch she'd been sitting on. "I've been trying to access my Russian bank accounts, but Ivan still seems to have them shut down."

Seto left his papers and went over to sit beside her. "Don't get me wrong," he started, not sounded like he actually meant it, "but what the hell is wrong with your father?"

Kisara's pout turned into a wry smile and she tucked a lock of hair that had fallen across her face behind her ear. "He's always been possessive, and arrogant. After he and my mother split up, he'd constantly harass her whenever I was at her house instead of his. He'd always say that he was better equipped to parent me or some other claptrap like that. This is probably an extension of that," she said, gesturing at the computer.

Seto raised an eyebrow. He'd dealt with Ivan Belikov the one time when the man had thought his company was worth partnering with Kaiba Corp. From that experience, he definitely knew Ivan was arrogant, and it was likewise obvious from his attitude afterwards that the man could bear a grudge that would follow people to the grave. But even with that experience and what Kisara had told him, Seto wondered if something else wasn't wrong with Belikov.

"You seem to be lying down and taking this rather easily for something that sounds like it's several kinds of illegal," he commented.

She shrugged. "I doubt that complaining or doing anything about it will do any good. The banks wouldn't have allowed the freeze unless my father had something dirty on them is what I'm guessing. He was the one who advised me to choose those banks in the first place. I really should have known better."

She sighed and leaned over against his shoulder. Seto automatically put his arm around her as she nestled in. Things had been going this way for them for the past few days since the accident kiss in the car. There hadn't been anymore kisses yet, but Seto had found the two of them walking and sitting closer to each other wherever they went. Seto knew that at this point everyone at school considered them a couple. Not so much the people at Kaiba Corp., but that's because they valued their jobs too much and were consumed by them, hardly able to take notice of such a relationship.

Mokuba seemed to be of the same opinion as the people at the high school. Whenever he would walk into a room where Kisara and Seto were alone, he'd jokingly back out and say that he'd come back later. Kisara always laughed and Seto always yelled at him to get back in there, but at this point Seto was starting to wonder if maybe Mokuba was right in his assessment of the situation. And sometime Seto did feel that when it was just him and Kisara in a room that there was something extra between them that didn't show up as well in social situations.

"If you like, I can have the legal department here at Kaiba Corp. get involved," Seto offered, feeling himself relaxing slightly against her.

Kisara chuckled slightly. "And by what authority could they get involved?"

"They can be sneaky."

Kisara laughed again. "I'm sure you can find better things for them to be doing than that. Besides, I have a paying job as well as free room and board. I think I can cope for now."

Seto prayed that no one would find out that Kisara was living with him. It's not like they were actually doing anything, but considering the way the press had reacted when they'd just had one picture of his touching her earlobe and vague reports of them hanging out at school, Seto didn't want to find out what they'd make of such news. And while Seto wasn't in the least bit afraid of Ivan Belikov, he likewise didn't want to test how that man would react to such knowledge, if only for Kisara's sake.

"So, what did Alec need to rant to you about?" Seto asked, remembering that she'd mentioned the punk, if only briefly.

"He's just having some middle-of-the-piece-blues. It's at the point where he can't help but criticize everything he's already done for being unoriginal or sloppy. He wanted to restart, but there's not enough time for that, so now he's just thinking of scrapping the whole thing and just taking an F." Kisara tilted her head back and looked at the ceiling with a combination of concern and frustration on her face. "I tried to tell him it was good and that he just needs to work through it, but he won't listen."

"Is it any good?" Seto had to ask. He wasn't a judge of art, so even though he'd seen the painting at an earlier stage, he wasn't sure that it was something that others would consider good. He personally really didn't care if others disliked it and tore it and its artist apart, but that would hurt Kisara if it did happen.

"It's not bad. It could always be better, but Alec needs to learn to cut himself off. He's too much of a perfectionist," she replied.

Seto snorted and earned a glare. But he couldn't help it. Slacker Alec with his ever-present white wife-beater, ratty backpack, bad attitude, and history of class-skipping was a perfectionist?

"Just think of a less wealthy, slow moving version of _you_ and you have Alec," Kisara informed him, leaning away slightly.

The comparison made Seto wince and Kisara smirk triumphantly. "Why do you like that kid, anyway?" Seto asked.

Kisara's smile slowly turned sweet again. "Didn't you hear what I just said? He's a less wealthy, slow moving version of you." She relaxed against his side again, pausing to give him a brief kiss on the cheek as she did. That was when Mokuba decided to make his entrance.

"Oh, hey. Yeah, I'll come back later," he said, already sidling back out the door, his own juvenile smirk tugging at his lips.

Seto removed his arm from around Kisara's slim shoulders as she obligingly slid a short distance away on the couch cushions. "Get back here, Mokuba," he ordered, his tone slightly exasperated and maybe a bit annoyed at the interruption.

"You _sure?_" Mokuba pressed, sneaking his head around the door, lips still smugly twisted.

"What's going on, Mokuba?" Kisara asked, sounding perfectly at ease.

"Just came to tell you guys that the fire department says it's okay to get operations rolling downstairs again," he said, jerking his thumb behind him. "The firemen are leaving now and our guys want to know if they should test Hyozanryu again, or if it might be a smarter idea for them to move on."

Seto grumbled slightly under his breath before standing up and straightening his suit. He caught Kisara's eye and she gave him a flashing smile and a tiny wink that Mokuba couldn't see. He found himself smiling back but cutting himself off when he noticed Mokuba still there, watching with amusement written all over his face.

"Let's move on."

* * *

It was night a few days later, and Kisara was curled up in the white comforter in the room she'd been given within the Kaiba mansion. Milaya was curled up in the blanket next to her, purring like a fuzz-covered motorboat as Kisara scratched behind her ears. They both blended in so well that only their eye colors (and Milaya's pink nose) gave them away.

Seto and Mokuba were at Kaiba Corp. Something _else_ had gone wrong with the clamp that might be tied with the problems that they were facing with Hyozanryu, and Seto hadn't gotten the chance to chew someone out for a couple of days, so he'd been rather eager to get his hands on the engineering team who kept dropping the ball with this project. Mokuba had tagged along for the ride, though Kisara guiltily suspected that he'd wanted to spend some alone time with his brother after she'd monopolized him for the past several days.

That was all fine with her. As said before, ever since she'd come to America it had felt as if she'd had little to no time to just relax and get her feet under her. Now she had quite a bit of time, more time than she was used to having. She kept feeling that she should be doing something with. Her school work was done, Alec had finally calmed down about their painting, and she wasn't currently needed at KC.

But she just felt like she needed to be doing something. She'd lain around for too long. Milaya _mrowed_ at her when she fidgeted a little too much and nudged her a time too many.

"Sorry, pretty girl," Kisara apologized. The cat glared at her for a minute before getting up, stretching, and laying down again, purposely facing away from Kisara. Kisara reached over and rubbed her between the ears until she got a reluctant purr before pulling herself up and going over to her schoolbag.

She'd finally thought of something to do. She hadn't touched her Osiris pin since Seto had climbed the tree to get it back to her (he'd finally told her the whole story). It had been sitting in the bottom of her backpack where she'd always have it with her, but it was badly tarnished at this point. She'd asked one of the servants in the Kaiba household to get her some silver polish shortly after she'd first arrived but had yet to use it. It was about time that she did.

Kisara hummed a little to herself as she went and sat at the desk the room came equipped with and polished the pin. It was quite badly off and the crevices were especially difficult to clean out. After a while Milaya crawled off the bed and hopped up on the desk, nearly sticking a paw in the polish.

"Silly, kitty," Kisara teased.

The Siberian sniffed the silver polish and slinked along, not considering the creamy-colored gunk worth her time. The shelves that were built in above the desk were another matter. Kisara hadn't put much up there besides a few books and some odd assortments of this and that from her daily life now that she was in Domino. There was nothing too important, but a lot of the pieces did have sentimental or at least educational value.

That didn't stop the cat from leaping up and knocking everything over in her path, sending much of it tumbling to the floor.

"No! Milaya, bad cat!" Kisara berated, dropping her pin and springing from her seat and grabbing the cat who attempted to hold her off by flopping down on and crumbling the cover of a paperback and kicking at her with her back feet. Kisara managed to get her hands around the fighting ball of hair that was intent on destroying her possessions, and then she banished Milaya to the hallway. Kisara vaguely hoped that Seto had made sure to close his office door, or at least that Mokuba hadn't purposely opened it. Milaya was in a _mood_.

After rubbing her hands over her face repeatedly and then back through her hair, Kisara moved back over to the desk to start picking up things. A textbook had landed in a nearby trashcan, the case that the spiral earrings her godfather had given to her had bounced to the middle of the room, and her Osiris pin, in all the excitement, had tumbled under the desk. Along with something else.

Getting on her hands and knees, Kisara reached under and grabbed her pin. She set it on the desk and then mulled for a moment as to whether or not she should even bother with the other item. It was the Blue-Eyes White Dragon card that Solomon had given her.

It wasn't like she'd ever get a chance to use it, not while she was working for Seto Kaiba. She didn't really understand why, but the idea of using that card, especially while in front of Seto, seemed like it would come across as a betrayal of him. There was something about it that put Kisara on edge. She didn't even want it touching her skin.

But there it was, lying facedown on the carpet, waiting for her to pick it up and put it out of sight again. For several minutes she just stared at it and actually considered getting up and fetching a handkerchief or tissue to use before touching it. Finally overcoming the senseless urge to avoid it, she sucked it up and reached out to grab.

The moment her fingertips grazed the back of the card, Kisara gasped, convulsed, and then fell to the floor. A few hours later Mokuba would her Milaya meowing outside of her door and open it to see Kisara lying there, her eyes wide open, something clutched tight to her chest as she proceeded to lightly twitch on the floor.

* * *

_Kisara had of course been aware of the bad blood between herself and the Pharaoh and his snakelike advisor Mahad. At times she had to admit she encouraged it, though she'd always denied it when Seto had accused her of doing so. She just wanted to stop being used as a weapon that was used to hurt what she'd come to think of as her own kind, and so she wanted to leave. And she wanted to take Seto with her when she eventually did. Maybe it was wrong for her to try to free them both by making them more of a problem than their abilities were worth, but the Pharaoh hadn't made it easy. The petty rules he forced on her and his going so far as to actually get Mahad to try to convince her to leave without Seto hadn't endeared him to her either. _

…_But despite that built-up animosity between them, she had never expected them to just let her die. She hadn't known they'd hated her __**that**__ much. _

_For the brief seconds that she had between the time the arrow flew through the air and the time it tore through her body, Kisara made sure to keep her eyes on the Pharaoh. She could have gotten out of the way, but then Seto would have been killed. The Pharaoh probably hadn't even taken into account that Kisara just might step out of the way and let his priest die. But she would never have done that. Instead, she made sure that the Pharaoh could see how much she despised him for allowing this to happen._

_The arrow hurt so much as it tore through her._

**Thanks for reading! **

**If any of you follow my SillyQuill account, you know how quickly I got caught up there last month. I'm going to try to do the same on Z. Romance, and then on Z. Quill here to get this fic up to speed for the first time in forever. Wish me luck! **


	17. Look At Me

**Hello! Have a lovely read of the long-awaited chapter seventeen. **

Kisara had been found in her room convulsing on the floor. A trickle of blood had been flowing sluggishly out of one nostril and staining red her white hair, white skin, and the white carpet beneath her. Milaya, currently subdued and huddling under Seto's desk at the mansion, had been what had alerted Mokuba to something having been wrong when they'd finally arrived back home. Her yowling had reached amazingly far into the corners of the house, greeting Mokuba when he arrived home early from KC without Seto. He'd gone to find her scratching desperately at Kisara's closed door.

Fifteen minutes later Kisara was at the hospital and Seto had been called by a scared, frantic Mokuba.

Seto could count on one hand how many times he'd been truly scared in his life. That call made and very nearly topped the list.

Now he was stalking through the glass doors of the hospital, eyes set on the entrance desk.

"Can I help you?" a nurse asked as Seto sped by. "Sir?"

"I know where I'm going," he called back over his shoulder. Mokuba had texted Kisara's room number and Seto had been in the hospital before, after Gozaburo's jump. He skipped the elevator and headed straight for the stairs. He took the steps two at a time.

He broke onto the third floor, nearly colliding with an ill-placed vacant wheelchair. Skirting it, Seto headed down the hall and swung to the left. He saw Mokuba curled up, clutching his knees on a bench in a little alcove of a waiting room. He looked worried, but there weren't any tears.

"Mokuba."

Relief spread over the kid's face. "Seto." He jumped up and ran over to his brother, hugging him tight.

"Are you okay, Mokuba?" Seto asked, pushing Mokuba back to search his face.

Mokuba nodded, swallowing, gathering himself. "I'm just glad that I headed home before you did. _Jeez_."

"I don't suppose they've told you anything about her condition?"

"They won't tell me anything specific, but the staff seems to have calmed down a lot. One of the nurses mentioned that she was stable in passing, but—"

"She is stable," a voice behind them confirmed.

A calm doctor stood there. She smiled in a restrained way before going on to say, "Because you are not her relatives I can't give you any details at this time, but I'm not going to let you live in fear of the worst out here either. She seems fine so far and is conscious. We don't know what caused her collapse or her convulsions, but we will be conducting some tests in the near future to see what we can find out."

"Do you have any theories so far," Seto asked.

The doctor held up a hand. "Sorry, Mr. Kaiba." Of course she knew who he was. "Unless you are family, which I happen to know you are not, I can't reveal anything more or let you in to see her."

"Please," Mokuba pleaded. "her family's in Russia, and she's staying with us anyhow—"

"Unless you're family, you don't get in," the doctor repeated. "I'm sorry, but that's the way it is."

Seto was gritting his teeth and doing his best to resist the urge to bite the doctor's head off when he felt Mokuba press up against his side. Seto wrapped his arm around his little brother and took a moment before nodding his consent.

"We understand," he managed to say civilly.

"Good. We'll take good care of her." That was all else the doctor would say.

Seto nodded his thanks before turning around with Mokuba and heading towards the elevators, the doctor's eyes on their backs… for a time.

"Is she still looking?" Seto murmured.

Mokuba glanced casually back over his shoulder. "Nope, she's gone around the corner."

"And that's Kisara's door right back there?"

"Yep."

They spun around at the same time and made their way swiftly over and through Kisara's door.

She looked like a wraith against the pillows. Shrunken and so pale she was see-through. But her eyes were open and her minute wry smile told Seto that she recognized them and knew what they were doing.

"Kisara, how are you?" Mokuba asked, walking over and taking her hand.

"Tired. And I have a bit of a headache," she admitted, her eyes wincing slightly, emphasizing the wrinkles that had formed in the last few hours around her ancient-seeming eyes. She looked old. Even the hand that Mokuba was clutching to his little chest seemed boney and papery.

"Other than that, what's wrong with you?" Seto asked. Mokuba gave him a glare for his severe form of questioning, but Seto couldn't help falling into his default mode of aloofness and even cruelness. He was worried sick. His stomach had literally been roiling for the last twenty minutes. Even before then something had felt off. He'd thought it had had something to do with an impending problem within the company, something he'd noticed but had as of yet not fully grasped. So he'd stayed when Mokuba had opted to go home. He should have gone with him. He should have been the one to find and take care of Kisara.

Coming out of his thoughts, Seto focused on Kisara. She looked like she was trying to say something, but broke off instead and took another vein. "The doctors and nursing staff don't seem to have much of a clue as of yet. They think I had a seizure, perhaps, but even that is just speculation…" She trailed off, and for a time, no one could think of anything to say. Finally, Mokuba was the one to speak up.

"You were clutching something when I found you," Mokuba noted, looking around the room, his eyes alighting on a box with Kisara's names on it set out of the way. He stood up and made to go over to it. "It's probably in there."

"Mokuba, don't!" Both Mokuba and Seto jumped at the sudden burst of energy from the bed. Kisara still looked old and infirm, but her eyes were lit, and as she raised herself onto her elbows, Seto was sure that she was perfectly capable of getting out of her bed and physically stopping Mokuba from going through her things.

"Mokuba, can we have a minute?" Seto asked, slightly dazed.

"Uh, yeah, sure. I'll keep watch." As he left, he turned to give a brief wave and smile directed at Kisara.

"See you, Mokuba," she said, smiling back. Suddenly she jolted up a bit. "Mokuba, could you please call Alec for me. I was going to meet with him tomorrow, but I don't think that that's going to work out."

Mokuba's eyes widened slightly and darted to Seto first before answering. "Sure, I can do that. Later, Kisara. Get well soon."

"Thank you." Kisara settled back into her hospital pillows as Mokuba shut the door behind him, having glanced to either side before he stepped out.

Seto took Mokuba's space by her side. Reaching out, he brushed his fingers across her colorless cheeks. Kisara's eyelids flickered.

"Are you going to be okay?" he murmured.

Kisara shifted so that his hand was now buried in her hair, but she was facing away now.

"I think so. The doctors seem to think I'm doing well enough, especially when they found out that KC insurance would be handling everything."

"It will. But I'm not so much concerned with what doctors are saying as to what you would say. _Are you okay?_"

_Look at me, Kisara_.

She just shuffled her shoulders in a weak semblance of a shrug. "I would think so."

He wasn't going to be getting anything else out of her, not that he'd gotten much at all in the first place.

On impulse, Seto briefly leaned down and kissed her on the brow. Kisara gave him a little grin as he straightened.

But she wouldn't look him in the eyes.

"Bye, Seto." She pulled the hospital blanket up to her chin and snuggled down, dismissing him.

Seto stood next to the bed for a moment, waiting for something more. When nothing came, he began to turn away.

"Bye, Kisara."

Seto and Mokuba stole out of the hospital, both feeling bad for leaving Kisara there.

"I don't care what that doctor says," Mokuba suddenly said. "We are Kisara's family."

"Agreed. She'll be back at the house soon, I think."

"I think so too."

Nevertheless, neither could rid themselves of the apprehension and guilt that both were feeling. And Seto couldn't help but think that even when Kisara physically returned, she herself might not necessarily be there.

* * *

Joey had become jealous of Mahad. He didn't seem to like that Yugi had a new BFF and that they were always talking about things in corners together, shutting up whenever any of Yugi's other friends approached.

Yugi wanted to reassure him, but what they were discussing wasn't something either he or the pharaoh felt that they could tell Joey and the rest about yet. Mahad didn't want them to talk with them at all about the Kisara issue, but Yami and Yugi agreed that they may want to bring them in sometime, if only to add a bit of reason to counteract Mahad's near-fanaticism.

_It's odd thinking of the gang as being reasonable people_, Yugi commented to Yami after another session of debate with Mahad. He was alone, walking to the cafeteria to meet up with everybody. Mahad had been asked to stay after class by Mr. Bronze. Apparently Mahad wasn't doing so well grasping the myriad of differences between various mental illnesses.

_I know. I'm sorry to put you in the middle of all of this, Yugi_, the pharaoh said. Mahad wasn't staying at their house anymore. In fact no one knew where he _was_ staying, so that meant that the only time all three of them had to communicate was at school, meaning Yugi had to be the intermediary between the two older spirits.

_It's all right, Yami. I think it's better if— _"Oof!"

Trapped in his conversation with the pharaoh, Yugi had accidently collided with another student.

"You want to be a little more careful, man?" Alec suggested, straightening his skewed glasses.

"Sorry, Alec… Are you okay?" Yugi could see that Alec was even more disheveled than usual, his eyes were bloodshot, and he was fidgeting and twitching all over the place.

"What? You haven't _heard?_ You and the other vultures haven't descended to feed on this new little bit of news about Kitty yet?" Alec snarled, shaking slightly, testing the remaining threads holding his backpack together.

Yugi felt his eyes going large. He'd never really known Alec all that well. He and the rest of the school knew at least a little in regards to Alec's slacker, no good attitude, and recently he'd gotten a bit more time in the spotlight due to his affiliation with Kitty. But none of the information floating around the school had prepared Yugi for a verbal attack the likes of which he'd compare to Kaiba's if it weren't for the shaking and the distraught tone of voice he'd used.

"I don't know what you're taking about Alec," Yugi slowly stated. "Did something happen?"

Alec's lower lip trembled a bit. "Yeah. But it's not like it's any of yours or the rest of the preps' business." He tried to brush Yugi off and push past him.

Worried for him, Yugi stepped back into his way. "Alec, I'm not one of those people. You can talk to me, you know. I'm not interested in causing a scandal or anything," Yugi tried to joke. Alec didn't seem to feel like laughing. "Go ahead and talk to me, Alec," Yugi urged, sobering up. "What's wrong?"

Alec didn't seem like he was about to open his mouth for anything. But he wasn't trying to walk away again either.

_Ask him about Kisara, Yugi_, Yami prompted. _She's been gone today._

"I saw that Seto was alone in first period," Yugi attempted. "Is something going on with Kitty?"

Yugi almost felt bad for exploiting Alec like this. Yes, he was genuinely concerned for his fellow student, but he also knew that Mahad and Yami would want any information regarding Kisara's actions and whereabouts. It was more for them that he was prodding Alec than it was for Alec's peace of mind.

Alec didn't seem to get that though, and after a moment of wavering, finally decided to unburden himself a little to guileless little Yugi.

"Ki-Kitty went to the hospital last night. She had a seizure or something. They don't really know what's going on. Mokuba found her—"

Alec shut up, staring over Yugi's head. Turning around, Yugi saw Mahad was standing a few yards away, looking like he'd been there a while, his slits of aquamarine eyes pointedly focused on Alec.

Alec glared right back at Mahad. "Kitty doesn't like you."

"And I don't like Kisara," Mahad growled.

"I'm not saying anymore," Alec bit off to Yugi before heading around him…

…to be caught by Mahad and pushed against the lockers.

_What's he doing?!_ Yugi thought. "Mahad—!"

"Tell me what has happened to Kisara Belikova," Mahad commanded, barely any emotion in his voice to go along with his violent actions.

"Get off of me!" Alec tried to fight back, but he was just a scrawny kid. Not an ancient Egyptian duel monster reincarnated whose memories had been sealed into a card which was then used to control him.

"What triggered her seizure?" Mahad rephrased, his purple hair shielding his face from Yugi's eyes.

_Stop him, Yugi_, Yami urged.

"Mahad, he's not going to tell you when you're threatening him like that," Yugi tried to reason, stepping forward.

"Damn straight," Alec hissed.

"Is that an order, pharaoh?" Mahad quietly asked.

"Pharaoh?" Alec repeated.

_Tell him it is,_ Yami said.

"Yes."

Mahad slowly backed off, ducking out of the way when Alec raised his fist and tried to strike out at him.

"Don't ever touch me again," Alec ground out. He swung around to Yugi. "And don't you even try to speak to me."

"I'm sorry," Yugi rushed to apologize.

Mahad snarled. "Don't threaten—"

"—'the _pharaoh'_?" Alec sneered, hiking his backpack over his shoulder. "Bite me, you sycophantic freak."

"Mahad, don't!" Yugi shouted as he seemed to make another move towards Alec.

"Is something going on here?" Mr. Bronze asked, having stumbled upon their little encounter.

"No, sir," Yugi was the one to answer. "Mahad and I were just moving on." He snagged Mahad by the arm and started backing away with him in tow. "Bye, Alec."

"Whatever." Alec glared after them both as they left him with Mr. Bronze.

Yugi dragged Mahad around several more corners until they reached a lonely hall of the school.

"What did you think you were doing, Mahad?" Yugi asked, on the verge of outrage. "You could have hurt Alec. Or—"

"Kisara has her memories back," Mahad stated.

_No_, Yami whispered in Yugi's head.

"What makes you think she does?" Yugi pressed. _What are you and Yami going to do if she has?_ Yugi thought to himself.

"The seizure-like symptoms go along with strong monsters recovering their memories after coming in contact with their card. It's because of that that's she's in the hospital."

"Well, this could just mean that—"

"She's remembered _everything_, pharaoh. She knows what we did." Mahad took a strong step forward. "She is going to come after us."

* * *

Seto nearly fell asleep on his desk at Kaiba Corp. a few afternoons after Kisara's fit. He hadn't been sleeping for the past several nights, even after Kisara came back from the hospital with nothing on the tests indicating a serious problem. Or any problem at all, apparently. She'd been home for two days, and he hadn't slept either night, feeling compelled to check on her all the time. He'd very nearly refused to go to school or go to work, but he had enough absences against him and now was not the time to be skipping out on work, not when such a large project as the new duel disks was underway.

But even though he'd gone, he hadn't really been functioning. And now he was sitting uselessly in his office, trying and failing to wake himself up so that he might manage something productive.

Not happening.

He woke up a few hours later to the sound of the pendulum Mokuba had gotten him knocking around on his desk, ready to chew Mokuba out for using such an annoying noise to get him up. But it wasn't Mokuba playing with the desk ornament.

"Kisara, you should really be back at the house."

There was a little grin on her lips as she stopped the clacking and began straightening the pens he had on his desk. Normally he'd be pissed that anyone was touching his things on his desk, but he was so grateful that she was even feeling well enough to come downtown. And she was nice to look at first thing after waking up. Her eyes were downcast and had shadows under them, and she looked a little less brilliant than she usually did, but there was still a lovely glow around her from her hair and skin, and the blue sweater she was wearing softened her even more.

It wasn't the usual harsh awakening that he was used to. Still, it worried him that she really didn't seem to have any strength or substance behind her at all. No one knew what had been behind her sudden fit, and Kisara had been refusing to see any specialists. Did she know what was really going on? Was she not telling him for some reason if she did?

Where were these _doubts_ coming from?

"Seto, do you…" She broke off and began to bite down on her lower lip. "Do you happen to believe in anything?"

"Like, a god?" Seto scoffed. That was probably his answer if that were her question."

"No. Maybe." She made a sound that was almost a laugh. "I'm not really sure what I'm trying to ask."

Seto took a moment to figure out what he was going to say before starting.

"Kisara, I'm not the person to come to if you're having a crisis of faith or something because of what happened. If you need to talk to someone to deal with what happened, which I'm still not sure about, then for your sake it had better not be me. Mokuba would be a good choice if he weren't still so messed up about it, or—"

Kisara had started shaking her head about halfway through his speech. "That's not what I'm here about, though thanks for the warning about you being a horrible shoulder to cry on."

Seto felt himself smirking a bit as she rolled her eyes. Sarcasm he could deal with, as well as deal out. But now wasn't the time.

"No. To use your words, for _your_ sake, it might be nice to know you had something to cling to before whatever's coming gets here." She gave a sigh that shook her whole frame.

"Kisara," Seto began, getting serious, "if you're sick, I want a warning, a legitimate, detailed warning—"

"It's not that, either," Kisara snapped. "I'm not sick, I'm not worried about my soul after the other day. I'm not any of that. I just—" A light that had been missing in Kisara's eyes over the past several days suddenly shot back into them, causing Seto to lose his breath.

"Stand up, Seto," she ordered, standing herself. He did and watched as she took an envelope from her sweater and laid it on his desk. Seto made to reach for it but was stopped when Kisara intercepted his hand, holding it as she walked around to his side of the desk.

Then she was standing in front of him, her free hand cupping his cheek before moving around behind his neck and pulling him forward, bringing his lips down to hers.

As they kissed Seto let go of her hand and pulled her closer, his arms crossing over her back, tangling in her hair.

So soft. And so familiar.

Seto tilted his head and felt Kisara's lips give way. He swore he could almost taste sunshine. And air and desert sand, but it was right. It was perfect.

He had no clue how long they explored each other with their tongues, but when they finally pulled apart, Seto couldn't decide whether he wanted to hold her against his chest forever, or if he wanted to shove her away and run from the building. One way or another, he had to find a way to dull the intensity he was in the grasp of.

But he wasn't given a chance. Kisara pulled away, and suddenly it felt like there were miles between them.

"I'm just going to leave this here," she said, tapping the envelope lying flat on his desk. She started to walk away, but paused in front of his desk, just barely facing him. He followed her partway around.

"Kisara… Kisara, what's going on?"

"I'm about to do something that I don't think you're going to approve of is all," Kisara said out-of-the-blue. She shrugged, still not looking him in the face. "I'd just rather not have you involved."

"You realize that your actions and your words are at war with one another."

Her lips twitched. "I'm going home. To see my father."

Seto's thoughts ground to a halt. But it somehow made sense. With their talk about how Ivan had a chokehold on her accounts, it made sense that she would want to put a stop to him. And maybe it had something to do with what landed her in the hospital.

"…I see. When are you coming back?"

Her lips twitched down this time. "I won't be coming back."

Kisara turned on her heel and began walking to his office doors at a quick clip just as Seto's brain kicked back into high gear again.

"What are you talking about?! Kisara, how can you do that? Kisara!"

She was leaving. She was walking out.

He felt his mouth gaping, his mouth that had just a minute ago been caressing hers.

"How can you leave me?"

She slowed, and Seto thought she'd at least turn around to answer his question. But that wasn't the case.

Kisara kept walking until she reached the office doors. Finally, she turned around, meeting him blue eyes for blue eyes.

"Bye, Seto."

He didn't even get to say it back to her before she was gone.

**Thanks for reading! And thanks to everyone for being so patient in waiting for this chapter. I figured it was time for an authentic kiss, followed by a rather abrupt ending. Sorry.**

**It's finally winter break. This has been one of the hardest semesters of my life, which is the main reason for the lack of updates. I hope to get some more stuff up before the next semester begins to make up for it. **


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